TWO
PHOTOGRAPHS
Maureen Clifford
© The Scribbly Bark Poet
A darkened fading
photograph hung on his granny’s wall
full of a dozen
people that he didn’t know at all.
Taken somewhere in
Queensland where the flies and midday heat
made the clothes
they wore still more bizarre as they stood on the street
in the noonday sun
outside the pub – one sensed their expectation
as they waited for
the billy goats to run – to stipulation.
The route was
fairly simple, round the pub and up Hay Street;
sharp right, then
right again on Bell and back to ‘Diggers
Meet’
The first child
who could make it back would win a silver cup
plus a penn’orth
of boiled lollies . Thing was goats
could all act up
and head to
points south, east and west without much hesitation,
but this was a just
a billy goat race – it wouldn’t stop the nation.
…
A picture stood
beside her bed – a child with smiling face
held cradled in
its mother’s arms beside the old sheep race.
Above, a pepperina
tree spread cooling dappled shade
and sheep dotted
the hillside - in the distance small
lambs played.
The child wore
just a singlet and a nappy in the heat
but he didn’t look
much different to the kids on that old street.
Look close and you
would note the resemblance around the eyes
with the boy
standing beside his goat and one just might
surmise
they were related. Indeed they were, the young boy with the goat
was the babe in arms
Great Grandfather. A country bloke of
note,
who had gone to
war to fight for king and country in his time
believing it was
worthwhile. Wanting freedom not a crime.
…
The babe cradled
in mother’s arms had freedom sure enough.
Freedom to do
whatever and he chose to do bad stuff.
He had no time for
country life ‘twas city lights he craved
he ran away from
Mothers arm and chose a life depraved.
He lived in
squats, he drank and smoked and never had a job
and sold himself
on Sydney streets – for drugs he’d even rob.
He turned his back
on family and turned his back on home
and broke his Mothers
heart – he was invisible – alone,
although known to
the boys in blue, a ‘rent boy’ was his tag.
a prostitute, drug
user, dealer, trouble maker, fag.
And one day in an
alley on a mattress stained and torn
they found him –
dead and overdosed – with needles still adorned.
…
They held a
service in the town, the townsfolk came to pray
for the young, red
haired ranga they recalled from yesterday.
The kid who
everyone had liked, with a good family gene,
who played footy
on Sundays and was in the cricket team.
Hard to believe he’d
ended thus. They shook their heads in
sorrow
and rallied round
the family – better days come tomorrow.
The cortege left –
went up Hay Street then circled back to Bell
to drive past all
the mourners gathered to wish him farewell.
Then slow and
stately carried on to the town cemetery
for a graveside interment
‘neath a pepperina tree,
beside his Gran
and Great Grandpa – in the old family plot.
The feral goats
grazed close nearby and God the day was hot.
