homework for week ending 27/08/12 - TEARS OF A WOMAN

[Maureen K Clifford]

A bit of a cheat here because I didn't just write this but rather rewrote it and tried to make it better than it was which I hope I have


TEARS OF A WOMAN


She sits on the verandah on a creaking rocking chair.
Smooths down her floral apron, runs fingers through greying hair.
Her eyes are bright and shiny with the tears that are unshed.
as pictures of her younger days keep running through her head.
It seems like only yesterday, though many years have passed
since she was a young woman with health and strength unsurpassed.
When babies crawled around her feet, when days were all too short
and money never stretched enough to cover all she bought.

She’d worked out in the paddocks and worked a job off farm
once kids were safely off to school, out of the way of harm.
She’d gone to all the dances and no wallflower then was she.
The young blades filled her dance card, but that would no longer be.
She’d ridden ‘cross the paddocks, mustered along with the best.
and trod the boards of shearing sheds, packed wool into the press.
Drove tractors, trucks and loaders and to most work turned her hand.
The hard yards of a country wife working beside her man.

She’d raised the lambs, and fed the stock, and made the house a home.
Raised children, hopes and dreams, but now was old and coped alone.
She loved the open paddocks and the clear blue western sky.
Her land was her grand passion though at times it made her sigh.
Inside her head she felt twenty. Of that there was no trace.
Reflected in her mirror were life’s lines on aged face.
The sparkle of her blue eyes, years and toil had stripped in stages
likewise the bloom upon her skin, now more like parchment pages.

Her children grown and moved away, and husband now long gone.
She spent her days out on the farm only cooked now for one.
No stock was left to care for save her dozen scrawny chooks.
Days were spent reminiscing, writing letters, reading books.
Her visitors are few now as the passing of the years
has seen old friends depart this life, close neighbours disappear.
But her old dog, her faithful mate who never leaves her side,
will be her sole companion whilst she lives or when she dies.

The drought had seen most neighbours leave, bereft of stock and home.
She still remained on land she loved, the place she called her own.
She’d move to town if she could sell, though that thought made her cry.
But who out there was looking for a property to buy?
Inside her head the pictures of her life were clear and bright.
Her husband’s touch so gentle. Stolen kisses in moonlight.
The warm arms of her children as they sat upon her knee.
Why does this woman shed such tears? Could it be she is me?


Maureen Clifford © Edited 08/12