A Ballad of Sunflowers
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:37 am
A Ballad of Sunflowers
© Brendan Pierotti
It’s a recognised fact – and it’s stubbornly backed
By the folks to whom this fact applies –
That the best place to stay and get up every day
Is the country – with mozzies and flies.
The towns you’ll find here aren’t ‘coquettish’ and ‘dear’
Stirring memories of ‘green shaded lanes’;
They’re generous and stable and buoyantly able
To handle their hardships and pains.
Though mostly ignored by the citified horde,
There comes every once in a while:
A hopeful romance through the stirrings of chance
That’s dictated by what’s the ‘in style’.
For there’s always some rover through places passed over
Who conjures the crowds with a call:
“Giru hasn’t much – it’s a bit out of touch –
But the sunflowers compensate all…”
They swarmed through the door of our town’s corner store
And chatted with Michael and Rita.
They’d fill up with gas and then promptly amass
In their jazzy and new seven-seater.
It’s been good for Giru that the business came through
And it’s great that the beauty’s been treasured,
But some took a walk and then chopped off a stalk;
The trespassing couldn’t be measured.
“Since they’ve got so much land it would not hurt to stand
In the paddock –” “I do beg your pardon!
Now how would you mind if you came home to find
That we’d set up a shoot in your garden?”
“They’ve put up no fence round the paddock and hence
We will trample right in for a party;
He hasn’t got power to withhold this flower –
The whinging old farmer’s no smarty.”
This was the last straw – on our way to the store
We saw this at the end of our gravel:
Two cars full of town folk who’d come from the big smoke
Were taking some pics for their travel.
They waltzed through the yard – our poor chooks were off guard
For the kids made a racket and roar;
My Mum promptly sent them and so they all went
But we still hung around to make sure.
We found it bizarre as to get to their car
They required a ten-minute tango;
They packed up the boot and the kids followed suit
While helping themselves to some mango.
If only we’d fathered some radishes rather
Than flowers we’d have had more peace.
But ‘twas well worth the raptured expressions they captured;
The joyous remarks did not cease.
Those Instagram hooters, professional shooters
Were charging a buck to their clients.
Although we had told them to get out and fold
They kept sending up storms of defiance.
A particular pro came five days in a row
And she set up a marquee with lighting.
She’d posted a log called ‘The Sunflower Blog’
And updated with photos and writing.
Some slick cockatoos had stopped off on a cruise
And decided they wanted some feeding
They nibbled the seed that the sunflowers breed
And shortly there was a stampeding:
The sky was a shock of the white-feathered flock
Which had gathered from every dominion
To witness this find and devour in kind
While giving a squawk of opinion.
When the stalks all are brown and their heads drooping down,
The ‘sunnies’ aren’t looking so pretty.
For the folks driving past them the memories will last
But there’s no-one around from the city.
As the harvest draws nigh now my Mum oft will sigh how
She wishes they all still were blooming,
But sisters and I are quite glad to decry
Of the times that they’d had us all fuming.
The stories of gold rushes have ere been told
But those ‘gold’ towns are never the last.
The remnants of vanity cling to their sanity
Fated to brood on their past.
The township’s old ways will slip into our days
And to routine, excitement will yield.
In humble Giru we must find life anew
As each dawn hatches fresh on the field.
It’s happened before now and I think you saw how
The interest in place never stays.
Small towns that were hosts of excitement are ghosts
Of their aspect in those by-gone days.
As I think of our fate it may well be too late
For the rural backbone of our nation:
When the young ones move on and the old ones are gone
It’s a shifting of life; of our station.
© Brendan Pierotti
It’s a recognised fact – and it’s stubbornly backed
By the folks to whom this fact applies –
That the best place to stay and get up every day
Is the country – with mozzies and flies.
The towns you’ll find here aren’t ‘coquettish’ and ‘dear’
Stirring memories of ‘green shaded lanes’;
They’re generous and stable and buoyantly able
To handle their hardships and pains.
Though mostly ignored by the citified horde,
There comes every once in a while:
A hopeful romance through the stirrings of chance
That’s dictated by what’s the ‘in style’.
For there’s always some rover through places passed over
Who conjures the crowds with a call:
“Giru hasn’t much – it’s a bit out of touch –
But the sunflowers compensate all…”
They swarmed through the door of our town’s corner store
And chatted with Michael and Rita.
They’d fill up with gas and then promptly amass
In their jazzy and new seven-seater.
It’s been good for Giru that the business came through
And it’s great that the beauty’s been treasured,
But some took a walk and then chopped off a stalk;
The trespassing couldn’t be measured.
“Since they’ve got so much land it would not hurt to stand
In the paddock –” “I do beg your pardon!
Now how would you mind if you came home to find
That we’d set up a shoot in your garden?”
“They’ve put up no fence round the paddock and hence
We will trample right in for a party;
He hasn’t got power to withhold this flower –
The whinging old farmer’s no smarty.”
This was the last straw – on our way to the store
We saw this at the end of our gravel:
Two cars full of town folk who’d come from the big smoke
Were taking some pics for their travel.
They waltzed through the yard – our poor chooks were off guard
For the kids made a racket and roar;
My Mum promptly sent them and so they all went
But we still hung around to make sure.
We found it bizarre as to get to their car
They required a ten-minute tango;
They packed up the boot and the kids followed suit
While helping themselves to some mango.
If only we’d fathered some radishes rather
Than flowers we’d have had more peace.
But ‘twas well worth the raptured expressions they captured;
The joyous remarks did not cease.
Those Instagram hooters, professional shooters
Were charging a buck to their clients.
Although we had told them to get out and fold
They kept sending up storms of defiance.
A particular pro came five days in a row
And she set up a marquee with lighting.
She’d posted a log called ‘The Sunflower Blog’
And updated with photos and writing.
Some slick cockatoos had stopped off on a cruise
And decided they wanted some feeding
They nibbled the seed that the sunflowers breed
And shortly there was a stampeding:
The sky was a shock of the white-feathered flock
Which had gathered from every dominion
To witness this find and devour in kind
While giving a squawk of opinion.
When the stalks all are brown and their heads drooping down,
The ‘sunnies’ aren’t looking so pretty.
For the folks driving past them the memories will last
But there’s no-one around from the city.
As the harvest draws nigh now my Mum oft will sigh how
She wishes they all still were blooming,
But sisters and I are quite glad to decry
Of the times that they’d had us all fuming.
The stories of gold rushes have ere been told
But those ‘gold’ towns are never the last.
The remnants of vanity cling to their sanity
Fated to brood on their past.
The township’s old ways will slip into our days
And to routine, excitement will yield.
In humble Giru we must find life anew
As each dawn hatches fresh on the field.
It’s happened before now and I think you saw how
The interest in place never stays.
Small towns that were hosts of excitement are ghosts
Of their aspect in those by-gone days.
As I think of our fate it may well be too late
For the rural backbone of our nation:
When the young ones move on and the old ones are gone
It’s a shifting of life; of our station.