South of my Days - Judith Wright

South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,

rises that tableland, high delicate outline

of bony slopes wincing under the winter,

low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-

clean, lean,  hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced,

willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple

branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;

and the old cottage lurches in for shelter.

O cold the black-frost night. The walls draw in to the warmth

and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle

hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer will turn up again
some day in a wave of rambler-roses,

thrust it's hot face in here to tell another yarn-

a story old Dan can spin into a blanket against the winter.

Seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones.

Seventy years are hived in him like old honey.

Droving that year, Charleville to the Hunter,

nineteen-one it was, and the drought beginning;

sixty head left at the McIntyre, the mud round them

hardened like iron; and the yellow boy died

in the sulky ahead with the gear, but the horse went on,

stopped at Sandy Camp and waited in the evening.

It was the flies we seen first, swarming like bees.

Came to the Hunter, three hundred head of a thousand-

cruel to keep them alive - and the river was dust.

Or mustering up in the Bogongs in the autumn

when the blizzards came early. Brought them down; we

brought them down, what aren't there yet. Or driving for Cobb's on the run

up from Tamworth-Thunderbolt at the top of Hungry Hill,

and I give him a wink. I wouldn't wait long, Fred,

not if I was you. The troopers are just behind,

coming for that job at the Hillgrove. He went like a luny, him on his big black horse.

Oh, they slide and they vanish

as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror's cards.

True or not, it's all the same; and the frost on the roof

cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash.

Wake, old man. This is winter, and the yarns are over.

No-one is listening

South of my days' circle

I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country

full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.

---

Judith Wright (1915 - 2000) Australia

Source: Poetry Soup