Me an’ the old road, goin’ along together,
The old road listenin’—talkin’ through the leather.
Friends? Why, we are cobbers, the old road an’ me,
Windin’ on, wanderin’ on, like rivers toward the sea.
All along the old road, tumin’ in, turnin’ out,
The hills make the milestones, risin’ like a shout;
Pejar, Grabben Gullen, Tarlo, Cowper’s Hill—
Journey-marks a-plenty, an’ the old man goin’ still.
Not a stump, as I pass by, that I don’t watch and know;
Not a rock or log or tree but’s friendly as I go;
Me an’ the old logs, the old log fences, too—
Wouldn’t I be lonely if every fence was new!
Me an’ the old road! Where every foot of way
Says, “Here you’ll pass tomorrow as you passed yesterday!”
Yesterdays an’ yesterdays, like hills ranged behind,
An’ they’re all stored together in the old man’s mind.
Over there’s a station, but the old road an’ me
Remember it as just a camp set beside a tree!
Ah, the little humpies! . . . They talk of “spearheads” now;
There never was a spearhead like the axe, an’ the plough.
Young feet made the tracks then, mine among the number;
Some sit by the hearthstone, some in churchyard slumber;
But where I make my campfire the chimney is the air,
And night comes like a lady with jewels in her hair.
Me an’ me fire together, an’ the old road beside—
Nested like a bird, an’ all the world so wide!
Beds? I’ve got no use for beds! I’d smother in a bed,
With doors kept shut, an’ windows, an’ clap-boards overhead!
What years we’ve had together, this old, old road an’ me!
There’s many a silver sapling, that stands today a tree,
Marked where we went first-footing, like bush-rats through the grass,
Where teams have crawled, and sulkies came, an’ now the motors pass.
Lonely? Me lonely with the road? What’s loneliness itself?
A tree is just as much a friend as crock’ry on a shelf!
Isn’t the sky as much to me as flowerbeds in a row,
An’ tinklin’ of a tea bell in case I shouldn’t know?
Why, all the time I’m travellin’, there’s nowhere isn’t home;
Patch of scrub or clearin’, ploughed-up ridge or loam,
Big tall gum-trees striped with blue, bastard box or yellow,
Every one of these is home to the old road-fellow!
Like a hound I pad the way, like a hound I follow,
Where the track climbs up the hill, where it dips to hollow;
Svag on back, and billy-can—all my little load—
Plant me, when I tramp no more, somewhere near the road.
(Dame Mary Gilmore DBE)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Mind Poems, Time Poems, Nature Poems, Youth Poems, Friendship Poems, Home Poems, Birds Poems, Hair Poems, Silver Poems, Tea PoemsBased on Keywords: risin, crock, but, turnin, hearthstone, milestones, cobbers, cowper, too-, gum-trees, listenin