Under The Mallee Bough

  Songs of the Murray Mallee. End of an Era. #4 ..The Last Empire. In the hour before the umbra, In the hour before the gloaming, In the hour before the sun is setting.. When the crow begins its nesting, When the galahs settle in the mallee, When the shadows grow longer in the mallee. With the hardest work of the day done, With the bulk of the fortnight work done. This day marked the winding-up of the harvest, This day saw the last bringing in of the grain. End of a year’s work of harrowing, Ploughing, seeding, praying for rain Watching crops grow in spring, Watching till now, winding down, Watching a year’s work and worry. The crop is in, harvested, winnowed, bagged, The carrier with his sons loaded the last bag, To cart the bags to the railhead, Bags to be shipped to the port. A “paying year” for the cropping, Not a bumper year as two years ago, A good year for the end of

  Songs of the Murray Mallee. Cliffs of the Murray River. Riccardo and Rosaline. #3.. . A New Generation . Driven to even further places, Into the Adelaide Hills they went, To Lobethal, named valley of praise. To Hahndorf to join their others, Further East to Hamilton, Victoria, Where verdant fields and fruitful crops. Set up their Lutheran Faith and churches, On more rich and promising pastures. Still they, these tenacious pioneers Stepped off ship with their families, Stern determination of a surviving peoples. Nothing could deter their ambitions, Then came the wars, Then came again the oppression, Then came again the name changes, Towns named of German favour, Family names of German ancestry, “Department of Nomenclature” opened, A ludicrous absurdity of a spiteful government. Forced German names to French. Rhine River becomes The Marne, Rhine Villa becomes Cambrai.

Songs of the Murray Mallee. Wagga and His Black Cat. #2 .. A New Homeland. They rolled across the flatlands of the Murray River plains like an unstoppable force of nature.. They rolled with tenacious persistence, They then forged a new Silesia. They then forged a new Posen. They then forged a new homeland. From the Vistula River valleys they came, From those fertile river flats and valleys, From The Oder River they came, From those snow-clad hills and mountains. Where myths and eagles flew, Where Roman legions once fought, Took their dreams from their own land. To this wild and strange country, To this strange and distance place. Where other dreamtime and eagles fly, Where the indigenous people danced. * Wagga would discuss things with his companion cat; Satan…of course, he never expected Satan to reply nor converse back to him in any cat language he, Wagga could understand, other than Satan

  Songs of the Murray Mallee. The Fable of Wagga and his Black Cat, “Satan”. #1..; Vera. Our fable begins in the years of The Great Depression, with an enigmatic man named ‘Wagga’ whom it was rumoured came from Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, and now lived in his rowing skiff and slept on the banks of The Murray River near Blanchetown in South Australia. He had no known trade but would meander up and down the river with no clear objective, catching fish and selling or exchanging them for other food or necessities as he required . Advertisement His comings and goings would have remained unrecorded for all time, but for the observations of a young schoolgirl named Vera, the child of an old Germanic pioneer family whose Parent’s  understanding of English was as sparse as their knowledge of arithmetic and dictation. Vera would see the regular rowing up and drifting down of Wagga and his big, black cat, “Satan”, perched on the prow of Wagga’s rowbo