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.

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..

The world will little care, when we are gone,
The winds, the fields, the skies, will be the same-
And youth will laugh again, with gleaming eyes,
AND……LOVE WILL SEE THE RAINBOW…AND THE RAIN.

There is no land on earth, where we may go-
The meadowlarks are calling, through the gloom,
A little spot of earth, beneath the snow,
IS OURS TO KEEP FOREVER….AND ALONE.

So lets forget our dreams, of long ago-
No paths are there to follow, down the lane,
The voices of the lads who sang with me-
Can not come back….to sing with me again,

The horseshoes that we threw have long been gone-
Like all the lonely fields, of waving corn.
OH HEART OF MINE….WHY DO WE WORRY SO?
When……life is ours….and we are on the go?

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at Lets Make Believe.

Had leathery skin from head to toe,
But way back then I didn’t know,
That horses had a thing called hair,
Like puppies, cats and also bears.

And then there were those big wide teeth,
And scales like armour underneath,
A tail as long as seven feet,
And why’s my pony eating meat?

It looked more like a dinosaur,
As there it crawled upon the floor,
Or floated quiet on the pond,
And when I called, would not respond.

But still I love my little horse,
Though now and then I feel remorse,
I introduced it to my cat,
And now my horse is getting fat.

by David Ronald Bruce Pekrul

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at Daddy Bought A Little Horse.

Well, here I am.
I never expected it to happen this soon,
but I passed away last weekend.

Stupid horse,
I told them I didn’t like horses,
too much power for an animal that gets spooked so easily.
But I blame it on the rattlesnake,
I hate them too,
so did the horse.

Stupid snake spooked the horse and it threw me.
The doctor says I died when I struck my head on a rock,
busted my head wide open, he says.
Well, maybe I did,
how would I know,
I’m dead.

What really gets my goat,
is lying in this box at what is supposed to be my funeral,
the celebration of my life,
with people remembering the ‘fine fellow’ I was.

Who are these people anyway?!
Someone must have got the eulogy mixed up with the funeral next door.
I hear someone talking,
but I don’t recognize his voice.

Who on earth is he talking about?
Is that supposed to be me?
“gentle spirit”
“giving and kind”,
“always caring for his fellow man”.

Horse-pucky!!
He doesn’t know me very well, does he?
Get someone up here who knows the real me.
Tell them what I was really like,
“lazy slob with no sex appeal”,
“cheap penny-pincher”,
“lousy dresser”.

Oh, well,
Let them have their day.
If they think better of me when I’m dead then when I was alive,
who’s it going to hurt?
Just so long as you know it ain’t so,
I guess that’s all that counts.

Hey, if you happen to be driving by the cemetery,
why not drop in for a visit,
and bring flowers.
I like orchids.

by David Ronald Bruce Pekrul

This post was originally published on Your Poems, Your Stories at I Passed Away Last Weekend.