Train Journey
Good-be Adelaide, Mother and Dad.
I see you trying not to cry.
Go on cry, so will I.
The train is moving earth and sky.
You've had each other for thirty years.
Be happy, plan another tour.
I'm crying, crying, crying not to
Not to not to not to not to.
Keep up the 'Rustle of Spring' Mother.
You've played it all my life on the piano.
I tried to pillow it out at night.
You play it well, try something new.
Keep up the hymns on Sunday Dad.
I'll remember your balding head at the piano:
children's songs, duets with Mother,
with Mother, with Mother, with Mother.
Now I'm on my way outback
to my husband, waiting for his wife,
like a windmill waiting for a wind.
Will I be a gentle breeze
or whirlwind whisking him this way and that.
We stop for a while at Farrell's Flat
where tense hawks clutch taut telephone wires,
telephone wires, telephone wires.
A boy waves from a school oval
then foots a ball into the dusty air.
Reminds me of the farmer's son
who came on his motor bike after Matric.
My Mother wouldn't let me go.
Now I'm free to choose it's you,
sturdy and sure with smiling brown eyes,
smiling brown eyes, smiling brown eyes.
Thin sheep scrum the shrinking shade
in the burning midday heat of summer.
Why did all the gum trees go?
No need to count the sheep, I sleep,
wake again to the same heart beat,
ranges of mouse-backed hills each side,
a breeze to keep the windmill turning,
windmill turning, windmill turning.
Whyte Yarcowie, why do we stop?
A brown grasshopper jumps into space,
a flickering flash on an unused track,
with rustle of wings climbing the air.
Wild goats rest in the ruins of stone.
Why have all the people gone?
Will we go too from drought and loss,
drought and loss, drought and loss?
Peterborough now but gone tomorrow?
Standard gauge or not will decide.
What will be our fate my love?
Yours the conservative traditional track
of husband grows wool, is lord of all.
Good wife bakes bread, obeys, serves.
Will you like my curry and rice,
Greek music and having my say,
having my say, having my say?
This is my stop. I hold my breath.
There you are on the platform waiting.
You push your thick black hair from your brow.
There is the man I couldn't refuse.
Here is the woman you dared to include.
