The Painting
© David Judge
Winner, The Betty Olle Poetry Award 2023, Kyabram and District Bush Verse Group, Kyabram, Victoria.
From the painting I saw when I opened the door
to the room where the old drover sat,
he could see my surprise by the look in my eyes
when I said to him, who painted that?
The old man in the chair ran his hands through his hair
and said, I did, it’s one of my own,
and the painting you see was a road map for me
when I travelled the outback alone.
He was ninety today and I dropped in to pay
my respects and to listen and hear,
about where he had been and the things that he’d seen
on those trips he made year after year.
The old hat that he wore was no good anymore
with a brim that was battered and frayed,
but he wore it with pride with its slouch on one side
and a badge from The Light Horse Brigade.
From his brow to his beard, his complexion was seared
after years in the saddle and sun,
which had weathered his hide to be frazzled and fried
like a steak that was well overdone.
And the scars on his cheeks were like drought-stricken creeks
that he followed through valleys he knew,
were abundant with feed and the water he’d need
to ensure that he got the mobs through.
The blue dog by his side was a brute and one-eyed
with a head like a melon with ears,
that would snarl with a growl if you ever ran foul
of the drover he’d been with for years.
And the scars on his chest, when he came second-best,
were from blows by a feisty big red,
that he’d bailed up one day and the frenzied affray
saw the ‘roo emerge slightly ahead.
Over years he’d slowed down, now confined to the town
with a new role that suited him well,
which was just to be there near his mate in that chair,
who had plenty of stories to tell.
The bay mare that he rode and the one with the load
of supplies that he needed to pack,
had both died long ago and as old drovers know,
the old droving days weren’t coming back.
Which is why he had kept in the room where he slept,
a reminder of what he had been,
of the things he had done, of the battles he’d won,
and the best of the bush that he’d seen.
I said, how do you know what those images show
from the thousands of dots I can see,
with those squiggly blue lines and those few curly signs
that mean nothing to ‘gubbas’ like me’?
As we chatted awhile he explained with a smile
that his ancestors drew in the sand,
like a mud-map today to show others the way
with a code they could all understand.
There are sand dunes and soaks and the tough desert oaks
were all part of that country I knew,
where the spinifex thrived and the hardy survived,
which was certainly no place for you!
And despite the slight jest, I was more than impressed
at how simple the detail appears,
which continues these days in those practical ways
that has lasted for thousands of years.
He continued to tell how his life had been hell
when his droving days came to an end,
when the choppers arrived and the road trains deprived
all those drovers on whom we’d depend.
There were livelihoods lost and a cultural cost
when the drovers were suddenly gone,
but his major concern was we don’t seem to learn
and society blindly moves on.
There is so much to learn and to give in return
for the drovers who gave it their all,
and how sad it would be if that all we can see
is a painting that hangs on a wall.
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