Tuesday poem: ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ by A.B. (Banjo) Paterson
January 23, 2012
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just “on spec.,” addressed as follows, “Clancy, of ‘The Overflow.’ ”
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected
(Which I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
‘Twas his shearing-mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
“Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.”
*****
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving “down the Cooper” where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.
*****
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the fœtid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the ‘busses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal—
But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy of “The Overflow”.
'...that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' (?) The sun seems to be located near Broome.
Yes, I’m going into fervent Australian mode as Thursday 26th January is Australia Day, or as some like to call it, Dags with Flags Day. Anyone who dabbles in this blog will now that criticism of aspects of Oz society is rampant to a positively un-Australian degree, so this classic 1889 verse from Banjo Paterson may raise me back to the golden realm of unadulterated, frolicking patriotism. (My shallow cynicism is in fact a cover for an embarrassingly gushy love for this country, but let’s pretend I’m not feeling that at all, shall we? Love is so much harder to write about than anything else, and I wouldn’t want to fall short.)
Actually, I love this poem too, particularly the ‘thumb-nail dipped in tar’. The longing for the pure realm of the bush that this poem exemplifies is something that still marks Australian poetry. Ask anyone where the best-known Australian poet lives today, and they’ll point to Bunyah and Les Murray, not to Sydney and…anyone in Sydney.
The suspicion of the urban environment, even in one of the most urbanised of economies, also lives on, I think. Real men are out there somewhere, with the kelpies and the sheep, in the ‘virginal’ bush, roaming as free as the public domain status of this poem. (Just don’t mention the previous ownership…I don’t mean the poem.)
A word about flags. The Australian flag is definitely seen much more than it was when I was a child. Not on public buildings so much; I remember having to recite something like ‘I love God and my country/ I will honour the flag/ and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law’ at primary school. Boys actually saluted the flag during this, while girls preened and made scones. But today we do see more private display of the Australian flag. Is this:
(a) because we ape America in everything, even flag-waving, although it’s a different flag?;
(b) people have more money, because of our flogging huge amounts of iron ore and uranium (and other good stuff) overseas?; or
(c) flags are cheaper now, and we receive millions of plastic ones back from the countries we sell huge amounts of iron ore and uranium (and other good stuff) to, in an equitable and sensible exchange?
I really don’t know, but I find these public displays of private flags very strange indeed. I worry about how their display might be related to charming bumper stickers such as ‘I Grew Here You Flew Here’, and ruder variations thereof. Not that you see many of them in Canberra: you’re more likely to read ‘Refugees Welcome’ in the ACT. But as I hear constantly, Canberra is not Australia.
Enough. Screed is bordering on The Burning Slough of Rant.
If the cloying smell of cattle or the sticky feeling of the wool emanating from this piece is disturbing you (or perhaps the premature reek of a million sausages on a million barbies is getting up your nose?) please head over to the Tuesday Poem Site, where the vowels may be a little rounder and the patriotism seems slightly more occluded, at least from a distance. (Until the next rugby thing, anyway.)
Poem from a hammock
January 2, 2012
It’s perfect weather, about 30 degrees. I’ve been swimming twice today, and saw dolphins, black cockatoos and Brazilian tourists; all very pretty. Tomorrow a new Test match starts. There’s always a new Test match at this time of year, and then there’s tennis, or should I say Tennis, in Melbourne. This poem relates to the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, and was written as India came out to bat. (I’m a quick poet, so I finished this before their innings was over…)
I know there’s still a world somewhere outside this huge brown hammock of a country, but in the middle of Summer, at the beach, that seems like an unlikely dream. Here’s a lazy sonnet from a currently rather lazy country:
Every Summer
The flat green bird, flecked with white,
squawks all Summer in the corner.
Clarke, Ponting, Hilfenhaus, Warner
versus Dhoni and Dravid (the one to dislike).
There’s a shadow plays just behind this match
for something odd occurred at Bellerive,
concerning Kiwis, still hard to believe.
So in case something else weird should hatch,
there’s a certain anxiety beneath our banter.
India’s chasing two hundred and ninety-two.
(Difficult, but not impossible to do.)
But I think we’ll win now, in a canter.
And when it’s over, and the song is sung,
silence pounds out its ghostly runs.
P.S. Cottier
Seams? I know not seams.
Best wishes to anyone active enough to be surfing the net. I’ll be back in full hardworking poetry-factory mode soon enough. When I extract myself from the comfortable myth of perfection. Happy new year to everyone.
(And after a lot of thought – for they still pop up in Australia in Summer – I can’t mention New Zealand in a light-hearted poem without at least acknowledging the new earthquakes that happened over the holiday period. I read the ugly words like ‘liquefaction’ and have no idea what that would really mean, except that it must be terrifying to be in Christchurch when these tremors/quakes occur.)
Update: I realise now, having visited some news sites, that as I was drafting this entry, another major tremor hit Christchurch. I hope that the damage was minimal.
Abbott’s booby
December 3, 2011
Sorry if the word ‘booby’ misdirected you here.
This is another poem about Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal Party in Australia, which is similar to the Conservative Party in England, in many ways. (Here’s the first one published on this blog, relating to climate change.) I recently had a poem about Australia’s attitude to refugees who arrive uninvited published on Eureka Street, remembering the dozens of people who died last year, smashed on the rocks of Christmas Island, an Australian island that is no longer part of Australia for immigration purposes. That poem featured the Christmas Island crab. This one draws links between another native of Christmas Island, Abbott’s booby, and the Leader of the Opposition.
Abbott’s booby
This poem regurgitated itself into my mouth —
a sardine of ill repute, silver little slug.
Abbott’s booby is a native of Christmas Island,
flying around and around.
Its cry is unmelodious,
unfit for any proper idyll.
It picks up stray ideas
and smashes them onto rocks.
(It is in league with the crabs.)
It is a member of the Gannett family.
And there, the useful metaphors run out,
like a big country’s generosity.
For this is a large, graceful bird,
once it has struggled into flight,
and it only troubles the wind.
It is unrelated to the budgie.
It is endangered.
Others, though, are entering their prime.
Oh silver, stinking poem,
shoved down a gagging throat.
P.S.Cottier
Hip hop before hip hop
November 22, 2011
Australia’s loss of frog species is, I believe, the worst in the world. We have lost the gastric brooding frog. The corroboree frog, a species that lives in the few really cold parts of the country, is the subject of directed conservation efforts, yet one wonders how it will cope with climate change. Here is a flyer (hopper?) for a US frog poetry competition, because the problem isn’t confined to Australia. Click to enlarge. Here’s their web-site. I have no connection with this group, but it seems like a good way of encouraging people to think about conservation; I’m putting the poster up at my daughter’s school.
Following below is a poem about a wonderful night when I saw a road covered with frogs in a jumping carpet. It is biologically inaccurate, but I tried to capture the sense of wonder that came with what seemed like a million frogs. I wonder how long we will continue to see this type of natural phenomenon?
Frogs at Durras
We bought a house, feeble fibro shack,
walls thin as a yacht’s, teetering near the sea.
The second time we drove there, slowly,
tentatively, nosing towards ownership,
a rough jagged rain sawed through twilight.
We wondered if the house could survive.
Turning the corner, our eyes jumped,
jerked at a million tiny frogs revelling in rain,
the black streaming street a foaming river.
Each raindrop a watery egg, containing
tadpole, exploding into perfect frog
as it hit the tarmac, transmogrified.
I ran ahead of inching car, scooping throbbing fistfuls,
placing them on nature strip, dividing green from black.
And still they splashed and clung to sodden tar,
each splayed finger reading braille on the rough road;
indecipherable invitation to party, or to climb, perversely,
the dark warm curves of the sudden crushing car.
Three years later, we sit in heat, and await the frogs
never seen since the Walpurgis abandon, that abundant night.
Sometimes we have heard them, piping, tinkling, muted bells,
signalling to each other, chirruping reminders
as they wait beneath rocks, huddled in just damp dark
that all droughts must break. Our house still stands.
P.S.Cottier
Trail of disinformation
August 18, 2011
Must find accent key...
Trail of disinformation
P.S. Cottier
‘Does it really matter, love? After all, we’re talking about a snail, aren’t we? I put down bait for them. Or squash them. It’s them or my veggies.’ Bill smiled, ate a peanut, and drank a little more beer.
‘It’s a special snail. A green one. Tiny.’ I sounded vaguely desperate, and I knew it.
‘But it’s still a snail, green, orange or purple. Rainbow even. I just don’t see the point, worrying about an ugly little bugger like that.’
Bill had hit the nail, or the snail shell, on the head. We were just talking about ‘ugly little buggers’. We wanted to prevent the development of a proposed mine because of the presence of rare miniature green snails, only found in one small pocket of rain-forest. If it were koalas, once the subject of a bounty, we would have been national heroes. A rare species of bird would be understandable. Everyone can see beauty in a bird. But a mollusc is quite a different kettle of fish. Too far beneath our eyes to count. Too near our feet.
It was Jennifer, my best friend and fellow conservationist, who came up with the idea to give our campaign to save the habitat of the endangered snail a certain indefinable…je ne sais quoi.
I knew we were onto a winner the next time I ran into Bill at the pub. He was reading the newspaper, the one that Jennifer had just leaked her ‘secret information’ to. It trembled in his hands. I noticed that he wasn’t smiling, or cracking jokes like errant carapaces amongst the beans. Indeed, he seemed a little angry, a little red in the face.
Bill turned the paper over so I could read the article he had just read. I had to cover my nascent smile as I read:
‘French offer to take Aussie snails
This paper has heard that an offer has been made, through official channels, for all the endangered miniature green snails in the area currently being considered for the development of a new mine to be removed and relocated to France, at the expense of the French Government. It is hoped that the species may prove edible.’
‘Bloody cheek’, said Bill, as he took a long drink of beer. ‘They’ve got their own snails. Poor little buggers. Why do they want to steal ours?’
He’d forgotten his previous comments about pellets and gardening. We had wrapped the miniature green snail in the flag, rendered it as Australian as the kangaroo. We eat them, but that’s different, apparently.
Despite vigorous denials from the French embassy, the story stuck. The public was outraged. Next week, the Government officially declared the snail habitat protected.
And deep in the bush, the tiny snails act out their slimy lives, safe from the development of a new tin mine. And of course, safe from any forced repatriation to the restaurant rich and risky boulevards of Paris.
