Under The Mallee Bough

  Haunted by History. So I drive to the town, pick up a few groceries, check the mail, chat a while..a bit of goss..a bit of this an’ that and then hit the road to home again…and that is where the haunting starts. You’ve seen them, out here in the mallee country as you drive along the main roads and the back roads…sunlight slanting off white sepulchre…you catch fleeting glimpses of them through the trees…deep in the scrub, sometimes almost complete, sometimes but a shadow of their former glory…….you can sometimes drive past them for years before you suddenly realise they are there and then you get a shock at their “sudden appearance”..: ruins of old cottages and huts…scattered, crumbling ruins…sad testament to optimistic aspirations. Mostly we drive on…just giving an acknowledged glance to these pieces of jaded history…someone else’s tribulations, another’s history. I have stopped at several of these sites…joined in a pagan-like offering to another’s st...

  The Sweet Touch of Melancholy. History has passed me by. ‘Tis with a sweet touch of melancholy, I reflect upon my mood today, ‘Twas one of a multiple of simple sayings, My Irish gran’ had perchance to say.. * “What you have not gained by age forty-five, You will never have, no matter the age you survive”. Now here I am, accrued my three score and ten, And what I have not gained comes to taunt me again. * My moment in history has indeed passed me by, That moment most desirous for myself to say, “I am surrounded by what best pleases me, I may, Now indulge in delightful fantasies, night and day”. * But now, in this ghastly, digitalised, parody of life, I tread soft footfalls to avoid unnecessary strife, Trying to conjure those spirits of esoteric, fantastic , Who do nought but tease me, dancing delightfully erotic. * My moment in history may have passed me by, But in this v...

  Social items of interest concerning the Murraylands…1931