Under The Mallee Bough

  Letter to a friend. I place this piece to you and your readers as a seperate post as I am sure my too regular presence on your newer posts must by now be somewhat tiring to see….I apologise for my intrusion on YOUR blog..It’s just that I am a chatty person..perhaps some would call me ..: “mouthy”…I have to wear it, and will try to reduce my verbosity in future…But I did want to say this and see if you..or any others who may read it.. have any thoughts on the subject, seeing as how you too have written so many words on such a familiar subject as the human condition. Out here in the Murray Mallee where I live, between the eastern face of the Adelaide Hills and the Murray River, on what is called ; “The Murray Flats”…or : “Break-heart country”..at the end of the second world war, there was a distinctive “cut” in a cultural tie with the methodology of farming…particularly in regards to the older families of the pioneer Germanic farmers in the area. B

  The Collected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon. Once upon a time, out in the deep Mallee forest near the Murray River there lived three sisters, aged sixteen, fourteen and thirteen…for as was common in those days, children came in quick succession. Their names being..from the eldest : Tess, Maggie and Rose. It was the years of post-Great Depression and the second world war raged another world away…in the deep Mallee where the sisters lived, the war was only a policy inconvenience, or in their case an opportunity for their father and mother to gain steady employment at a charcoal burning camp as he; a mechanic, and she ; as cook to around a dozen men who cut the mallee wood to burn in the pits to make charcoal. The two younger girls helped their mother with the preparation of the food, while, Tess, the eldest worked not far away at Portee Station, a cattle and sheep station on the rim of the Murray River. Being of a family that by necessity throughout the

  A Compendium of Poems.              Under the mallee bough,                 Across the quiet waters,              Blended with cries of river birds,                 We hear our ancestral voices . . .                                                           A compendium of poems.                                               ( Sponsored by : The Scriveners Review.)     [Page One] My little window on the Western Wall. My little window on the western wall, Opens out on the whole wide world. It opens out on the mallee plains, It opens out to the summer rains. It opens out on a sonorous dawn, With it’s promising colours in pastel tones. And embraces within all sorrows and joys, In silent parade past my western wall. Flowers of Spring as the seasons go, Winter wild, Summer mellow. Fields below the farmer sows, Crops in serried paddock rows. A child cries out! A strange bird s