MY LOST PLACE – MY COUNTRY

 MY LOST PLACE – MY COUNTRY … Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet

https://soundcloud.com/maureen-clifford-scribblybark-poetry/my-lost-place-my-country

Lost places … Are places ever lost if they remain in someone’s memory – someone’s heart?

My lost place is an old sheep property – my home for only five years but my Karma.  The place that my heart and soul had been searching for – finally found, fleetingly enjoyed and now lost – to me.

Traprock country, though harsh and dry in drought is magnificent, beautiful and resplendent in good times.  New grass cloaks the land in green, and it is dotted with white wisps of Merino sheep, and the hard unyielding grey granite boulders that litter the slopes like a giant’s marbles.   Above in the brilliant azure skies bronze Wedge tail Eagles fly high on the thermals, surveying the land below for rabbits or weak and new born lambs; the food for their survival and to feed their own young.

Towering crests of the hills are guarded by ring barked Gum trees that stand like sentinels pointing the way to who knows where.  Cleared acres of open space, and hills covered in thick scrub.  Deep gullies, with water holes edged with shivery grass beneath eroded granite cliffs, with steep snakelike tracks, wending down to the sweet waters below, tracks that have been worn over time by thousands of sheep, deer and feral goats on their daily trek to quench their thirsts.

Sundown National Park with its heavily wooded slopes and granite boulders, hidden waterholes and secret tracks, and its mystic spiritual links with the Dreamtime, sits right on the doorstep of “Springdale’.  Hidden caves with rock paintings of roo and snake.  The echoes faint – imagined – remembered, of tribal songs and native voices. The scar of the dingo fence, always visible winding its way through the trees – a useful landmark to head for if bushed.

The sonorous rumble of the ewes as they emerge wraithlike through the early morning mist, calling their lambs to go for their morning drink at the dam, leaving silver trails behind them in the dew drenched grass as they pass by in single file, nose to tail – heads nodding in time with their walking.

The rattle of gravel, a cloud of red dust and the rumble of wheels over the grid as a neighbour heads for town – always accompanied by the 'beep beep' of the horn or sometimes a shrill whistle as he passes by your place.  Three days now and no other vehicle has passed your gate.

Roos – big greys keeping pace with the car along the roadside and then bounding with ease over the barbed wire fence and across the paddock.  Cute pretty faced wallabies - small, dainty, sweet.  They stand heads up; ears pricked watching your approach – then pound off into the scrub hell for leather seconds before you reach them.

The reality – Sadness – Despair as lambs are lost.  Babies who had barely drawn breath killed by fox and pig and crow and eagle despite the best efforts to keep them all safe.  Old ewes, weakened by drought and mud mired – eyes taken by crows – a bullet their last reward. A harsh country with each death equating to dollars that are desperately needed.
The misery of losing a dog, a four legged mate.  So heartbreaking but somewhat inevitable.  Working dogs are worth two men.  Without their willing and eager assistance no farmer can manage in this country.  They are the controllers of the flock, guard dogs, loyal, loving and faithful companions. Sometimes your only Mate for days on end.  Some never understand that snakes can kill.  The curious succumb.

Wild pigs, (always a problem to farmers) fear nothing. They kill lambs and weakened sheep. Carrion eaters - silent, stealthy and deadly killers who flatten fences, root up good pasture, ruin fields of grain.  They are cunning – smart enough to drop down and hide behind a fallen log until the hunter passes by, then spring up and run away, which is fair enough – the fight or flee syndrome. A smart dog will bail them until the farmer can dispatch them swiftly with a well aimed bullet. But many a game dog, either too cocky, too slow or not pig smart has been lost to these black bulldozers.

This is my lost place. My country.  I grieve every day for her – but she lives forever in my heart.

needs grow and alter
the winter of life takes hold
changing perceptions