And carelessly stepped on the Moss;

Who delivered a lot of unbalancing shocks,

While trying too much, to be boss.

Though I usually found my feet able to grip,

At this time, I started to skid.

So I panicced, and had to inevitably slip,

To land on my skin, God forbid.

As I fell down the hill, and continued to roll,

My body drew close to Split Creek,

Which would chill heart and body (but never the soul).

I felt myself growing quite weak.

I reviewed the deceptions of Moss, which pretends

To be rosey red, when it’s green;

So decidedly green, that it willingly lends

Itself to cause me to careen.

Though my injuries had been already accrued,

From bumps I sustained in the fall,

They were nothing, compared to what might have ensued,

In Split Creek, if I couldn’t stall.

But like Jonah, commanded to speak; but who had

A Whale of a time out at sea;

Still reluctant to talk, lest I make the Moss mad,

I suffered what happened to me.

I remembered the thought of a mountain top queen,

Before the fall sought to distract.

I rhetorically asked myself “What does it mean?”

And stopped rolling, ready to act.

Then, rebuking the Moss, I was quick to regain

My vision of queen of goodwill.

Then I thought (as I realised I couldn’t complain):

I might have climbed up the wrong hill.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at SLIPPING ON THE MOSS.

With scenery improving, once I’d gone past Emu Plains.

I did not know the passengers around me, but perhaps one

Might care to play a card game, since we’d only come to Lapstone

(2)I closed my vintage fiction novel fast. So I could then look,

To see surrounding bushland, as the train pulled out of Glenbrook.

The concrete steps and walkway, over roads and rails and tracks stand

Beside the station fences, built more recently in Blaxland.

(3)Excited tourists took in views, and were not sorry too,

That urban redevelopment had not occurred in Warrimoo.

The summer sun that made them hot, and burnt their skin shall be

Forgotten now in Springwood, not too far from Winmalee.

(4)The clear far western air was like that from an open fridge:

And all the fruit was tasty at the shops in Falconbridge.

I underlined one station on timetables, with a thin pen.

You need to tell the guard if you intend to stop at Linden.

(5)My carriage weaving past the hills would often strike a good chord,

As I looked up at overpasses linking roads to Woodford.

My adult self did not forget the early childhood days he took

Excursions with school second class beyond the streets of Hazelbrook.

(6)The bushwalks were worth doing, and these verses should endorse one.

My ears repressurized, to suit the greater heights of Lawson.

The fields were green, and gumtree trunks a somewhat duller colour,

And horses drank fresh water from a pond in Bullaburra.

(7)A roundhouse in a paddock, with tall arches in its walls,

Preceded several pine trees that I passed in Wentworth Falls.

The suburbs further on provided still more atmosphere:

The highest peaks and widest views that came with that lost year.

(8)The weekend trips grew cooler, as the months became a memory:

February, March and April. Each of them was only temporary.

The further up I went each time, before I’d be alighting,

The more the sights I saw up there were ever more exciting.

(9)The red leaves looked as they did, in a 1900s autumn.

I needed winter gloves, and found a clothing shop, and bought some.

The flowers in the gardens of a holiday retreat

In bloom would make the image in my photograph complete

(10)In Medlow Bath, a friend and I went searching for an airstrip

Out somewhere in the bush. I asked a lady with a hairclip,

If she might know the route we’d need to find our destination.

The travel map I’d used had aged too much since publication.

(11)That 1997 afternoon in mid-July

We waited for our fellow mountain walker’s best reply:

“I haven’t come across that place in any of my walks,”

She said, as night began to fall on dandelion stalks.

(12)My friend and I discussed new ways to make the night go well,

And watched the lights go on outside that suburb’s grand hotel,

Enjoyed its lounge room fire, and then went home by heavy rail,

Imagining those three explorers charting out a trail.

(13)Thankfully, since they produced their maps on ancient parchments,

No-one found a way to bulldoze through those high escarpments.

Now, years later, still convinced that mountain life was best,

I relocated to this land beyond the city’s west.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at NIGHTFALL IN MEDLOW BATH.

Of bushes and forest and small hills; and readied himself, with a chance.

He stood on the edge of a sunset, with houses not far from his rocks,

And somehow the sunset was lengthened, slowed up through a trick of the clocks.

He harnessed the wings he had fashioned, aware they’d permit him to glide,

But never to fly any higher; and planned his penultimate ride.

The suburb he’d wandered for decades had come to its outermost edge.

He felt like a pioneer, waiting for strength to step out from the ledge.

Around him the movement of minutes had now (from his viewpoint) grown slow.

But night can’t be held back forever, since time need continue its flow.

The slowdown had only extended the best hour of one summer’s day,

With sunburn unlikely, and also an hourglass providing delay.

Recalling his visits to galleries, with sunsets of canvas and paint;

He’d never seen anything like this, as time showed its generous restraint.

The colours of twilight would summon orion to twinkle and shine.

For once that could wait until someone had soared over branches and vine.

He bent his legs quickly and kicked out, so eager to see so much more.

Beneath him were fresh summer breezes; and he took his first chance to soar.

He curved over treetops, and wondered if branches beneath them were sharp.

With everything else in slow motion, he somehow could still hear a harp.

He veered in another direction, to mansions built next to the fern;

And spied, on a balcony-courtyard, the one who had caused him to turn:

A feminine woman, whose music was flowing in relative synch

With time’s little gift for the glider, who knew he had no need to think.

He had enough height left, and reached her, as nightfall and real time were set

Concurrent with both of them, once more; its duty done once, they had met.

Like him she’d spent all those years waiting, unaltered by children or change;

So both could embrace their fulfilment, which destiny chose to arrange.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at HAVENFLIGHT.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at truck driving in the usa.

or how the PRAIRIE wind…..goes singing by!

I will not pause an hour again to build
A castle….in the far dim land of DREAM-
Or how the wind flows ever whispering by-
Or bright with GOLDEN LEAVES
THE OLD TREES LEAN!

I think there is an ANGEL very near-
Who tells me how to weave each word….and line:
Then we together sing this SILLYSONG-
Or play it on this Old Violin of mine!

I can not climb again the prairie hills-
Or walk for miles, or dow some dusty lane-
So let me KEEP this only land I know….
Of stars, and gleeming sky……
AND…..FAR OFF RAIN!

Thats as fine a poem as I can write… I didn’t write it, the ANGEL DID….as I say in my song. If its good enough for her, its GOOD ENOUGH FOR ANYBODY…..even John F. Kennedy, only HE is dead. Woner how long it will be before they SHOOT BOBBY?

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at Sillysong.

The song of love is a bright song-
Tho bound in pain and woe-
The song of love is a dear old song-
FROM THE DAYS OF LONG AGO!

Say Darling Say-
When I am far away-
Gone like the days of September-
Will you feel sad,
To think you never had
SENT ME A LINE TO REMEMBER?

Say darling say-
Sumer has sped away-
Summer is gone, with its dreaming;
Oer the hills of home
Cold winds roam-
And goldenrods are gleaming.

Say Darling say-
Life has flown away,
Its so many years since we were young-
Rainbows of Spring,
Once were EVERYTHING-
SEND ME A LINE TO REMEMBER!

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at Song of Love.

Its all so different now, maybe my song can bring it back, for some of the farmers, of years ago.

Old Springtime

Oh the happy, happy Farmer-
He is getting ready now-
To harness up the horses -
and attach them, to the plow!

The wild geese, flying over-
Flying far- and flying free-
And the Prairie Farmer’s Dreaming -
There his greatest pleasures be!
He can hear the wild heese calling,
Flying free, and flying far-
And the tired farmers dreaming-
There his only pleasures are.

Theres a hill, away out yonder-
theres a field, that once was mine!
In the years, beyond tomorrow-
Take me back, to supper-time!

With the horses, standing chewing,
In the od grey barn, out there-
And the wind, just softly blowing,
O’er a land, of little care!

Take be back, to those old spring days-
When he Farmer, followed a plow,
And the world was way out yonder-
Past the hills- Forgotten now,

And the days, were long and quiet=
Even birds, had time to sing-
There were buffalo-trails to follow,
To get water, from the spring.

WE could hear, the wild geese calling-
From the clouds, that drift, and blow-
Drift and blow, across the summer,
And the spring-time, LONG AGO.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at The Dakota Farmer.

The wild geese flying over-
Flying far- and flying free-
Oh, the Prairie Farmers dreaming-
There his greatest pleasures be!

He can hear the wild geese calling
Flying free, and flying far-
And the tired Farmer’s dreaming-
There his only pleasures are!

Theres a hill, away out yonder-
Theres a field- that once was mine-
In the years beyond tomorrow,
Take me back, to supper-time!

With the horses standing chewing-
In the old grey barn, out there-
And the wind, just softly blowing-
O’er a Land of little care!

Take me back, to those old spring days,
When the Farmer, followed plow-
And the world was way out yonder-
Past the hills, we saw put west-
And the days were long, and quiet-
Even birds had time to sing-
When I heard, the wild geese calling-
From the clouds, that frift and blow-
Drift and blow, across te summer-
And- the – spring – time — long ago.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at SPRING DAYS..

Some said “GIVE IT BACK TO THE INDIANS!”
Tho the INDIANS did not care-a-damn-
As the WHITE MAN had killed off the buffalo-
There was NOTHING to keep an old man!

I have stood on a hill in Dakota-
And watched for a far hint of rain!
While the “hotwinds” kept calling and calling-
To the fields, with no promise of grain!

I have walked through the darkness and shadow-
I have heard the far call of the wild-
I have dreamed of the tall waveing meadow-
And the prairies, I knew as a child.

BUT ITS ALL DIFFERENT NOW, there’s a Rumar,
That DAKOTA has come to its own;
Its the only land left, and the prairie
“Is the BEST PLACE to buy up a Home!”

Its a WIDE PRAIRIE LAND..and its calling,
And the COYOTE has lost his last Home-
Where the “SHYPOKE” once cried from the meadow-
AND THE DARK INDIAN CAME, just to roam.

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at Old Dakota..

You think it is not far to Home?
Is it just around the bend?
Is it only over the hill a ways?
A little walk, and then
WILLL I FIND THEM WAITING!
WHEN I COME HOME AGAIN!

So many miles, so many nights,
Could you tell me, and say
That we will find the path at last
That leads back Home someday?

How far is it to Home, he said,
When the end was Oh so near!
We wonder if he found the way?
We wond if he knows-
That WE are soon to follow-
WHERE EVER THE OLD PATH GOES!

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at How Far To Home?.