Page 16 - eMuse Vol.9 No.10_Neat

Where Does the Outback

Finish

And Where Does the

Bush Begin

Lawson’s Last Review I was challenged by a native of the star and stripy push,
For details on the difference ‘tween the outback and the bush,
And the challenge I deflected ‘till I had at length reflected,
His blood has crept through coffin rags and bled into the teak. On the question that had caught me by surprise.
His mind has fled to fairer grounds to sweat, to build, to seek. And my mind stepped back to places, to other times and faces,
And all that’s left are vibes and verse and pathos, pain and sorrow. Then a darkened space responded to a full moon on the rise,
He’s left us on the earth for now, to grapple with tomorrow. As I thought of times more gracious when I sailed across the land,

But still his livid spirit lives in lines that light the soul, In a flat top Dodge with compass, and a windlass close at hand.
For his name will stir ... crescendo, when great writers call the roll. When the bush shook hands and said “G’day” and gave me a wink
He tempered rhyme with reason in “The Storm that is to Come”, and a right of way,
While he woke the London legion with the banging of “Booth’s Drum.” By pressers girding sacks with Golden Fleece,
And I’ve felt the knobbled knuckles through “The Shakedown on ‘Midst a mix of mates who people, their woollen sheds their
the Floor”, church and steeple,
As classrooms cradle echoes of his penchant “Dogs of War”. And where batsmen still with bare toes mark the crease.
I’ve walked in gaunt battalions with “The Union and its dead” They both have oblong tracks they use one day a year,
And enlisted with “The Drover’s Wife” to fight the coiling dread. Where the silks are just as bright as any city,
And incumbent with his leaves of life, through city, town and bush, And the girls have eyes that flash, take their beer with “just a
I can hear the guttural curses of “The Captain of the Push”. dash”,
And wafting through the alleys, drifts a Sally’s battle hymn, And they range from beauty queen to very pretty.
But my thoughts have gone with Andy, and with “Tambaroora Jim”. Yes, they both boast girls as rare but in essence to be fair,
I’ve scoured the planets poets for a bard to match the beat, The outback girls are fewer, hence more precious,
And “cameoed” conclusions found in “Faces in the Street”. Outback beer is not as cold, is in a constant state of “sold”,
But dusk is in the saddle now and by “The Cherry Tree Inn”, For it’s rarely ever titled under STOCK.
I can see the vaulting spectres of “The Men We Might Have Been”. For the thirsts rate long and deeper and have the outback’s thin
And the cache of cast and characters that bled the writers bloom, innkeeper,
Are mustered ‘neath the she oaks claimed by “Poets of the Tomb”. Constantly attending to his flock,
From a goldless hole on Grenfell where he saw “His Father’s Mate”, For the work is hard and hotter for the sinker and the squatter,
Strode a literary giant and visionary to rattle fortune’s gate. Whilst her desert pea is threading by the redness of the rock.
And those that reason this remark was base and insincere, And I think the outback ends where her great red mantle tends
Join the ranks that press the platforms of his “Second Class, Wait Here”. To meld into the blended sands that crush,
And when the writers of the world evoke, as writers do, And is that line of demarcation the dividing line of nation,
They’ll light the lamps for Lawson as he holds “His Last Review.” Binding awesome strands of outback to the great and mighty
bush.
Robert Raftery © It somehow seems the outback lies a little further out,
Picture Writer And it seems it has a deeper one when the seasons turn to
Brisbane Australia drought,
December, 1985 And my old wall map here says it, outback’s necklaced in with
desert,
Then the Christ brings out his palette and his paint,
When the monumental rains rejuvenate her powdering plains,
In colour bursts that dazzle waiting regions of restraint.
Robert Raftery ©
Picture Writer
Brisbane Australia
16 eMuse October 2020