NOT BLACK ENOUGH FOR MIDNIGHT

 

NOT BLACK ENOUGH FOR MIDNIGHT

Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet

 

 

His name was, he said, eleven fifty nine.

 That was different we thought, rather strange

but we didn’t ask him about it right then

for our chat was a pleasant exchange.

Once we got to know him a little bit better,

 we thought we’d ask Elvin to tell.

How he grinned as he spoke – he’s a pretty nice bloke

 and one quickly fell under his spell.

 

Well as he told the yarn of his long ago days

 when he was still a slip of a lad,

he told how he worked on big stations outback,

 droving cattle alongside his Dad.

He said that the blokes he worked with were all cards

 and he got on with them.  They were right.

But they claimed that although a blackfella he was –

 he wasn’t black enough for midnight.

 

 

So that’s how he came by the strange name he had –

 eleven fifty-nine was well known.

I doubt if he weighed in at one hundred pounds

and was quite a bit shy of eight stone.

He was wiry and slim but as strong as an ox

with a grin that would light up the dark;

just as well he reckoned, for he had heard tell,

 that the boss thought him quite a bright spark.

 

 

He could ride any horse as a matter of course

 though the equine concerned wasn’t broke.

But they followed his lead and each brumby paid heed,

 must have been in the way that he spoke.

Give him twenty minutes and you’d see him riding

that brumby bred mare from the scrub

with never a pig root or indignant squeal. 

They’d be standing docile for a rub.

 

He could shear with the best – we put him to the test,

 this bloke barely broke out a sweat.

And the big dollars fell as onlookers will tell –

 there were plenty there willing to bet.

He worked neck and neck with the shearer from Gulgong

 and their tallies kept going higher

‘till the gun shearer broke on his second last stroke –

 as to why none were game to enquire.

 

There was nothing that fazed him he’d take on the lot,

 be it droving or crutching or fencing

and always along with a joke and a smile

 there’d be wisdom that he’d be dispensing.

He’d lived off the land and he knew the secrets

that the Mother kept close to her soul

you’d see him sit quiet - smoking and  dreaming,

  his thoughts always under control.

 

 

And sometimes at night when the hard work was done

 and we sat round the campfires to yarn.

He’d tell us the legends and tales of his people.

So simple, yet full of such charm.

His vision was simple, and simple his needs –

 he craved not the things white folks do.

But his love of country.  Mate! That you could feel.

 A good bloke he was.  Real true blue.

 

Those days are long gone but I often recall

that bloke far too pale to be Midnight.

I valued a friendship that stood staunch and strong

 through dark outblack shadows to daywhite.

I hope that he rests in his heart country now,

 found his dreaming at last – no doors slamming.

For I heard my mate passed on the stroke of midnight

 though I reckon he must have been gammin’.