THERE AIN'T NO GATES IN HELL

[Maureen K Clifford]

THERE AIN'T NO GATES IN HELL .. Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet


He'd lived out west for many years, more than he cared to count.
He'd seen it all – the scorching winds, the fire, flood and drought.
He loved the land with passion and called the bush his home
and city streets did not appeal, on them he never roamed.


One day while tailing cattle down toward the water course,
mathematical equations came as he rode on his horse.
He idly pondered, as one does, how many gates there'd been
and thought about the many miles he'd travelled in between.


There were gates of every kind and they were everywhere you looked.
To open some was easy, but others were bloody crook.
Some would whack you on the bum as quick as you went through,
whilst others needed all your strength to open them...it's true.


These days with automation, and an infra red beam spy,
some gates by movement open in the blinking of an eye..
Still others work when weight is put upon a hidden plate,
but after all is said and done they are still bloody gates.


Those Cocky Gates....horrendous things, just saplings and some wire
that tangle in your feet when down, and watch out for your tyres.
An eight foot span of barb wire, fitted with two metal thongs,
when standing they are all right, but when let loose get the gong.


Three sixty five days in a year and twenty gates a day,
plus extras to be opened and then shut along the way.
By his quick calculation that's eight thousand gates or more.
How many gates have city folks between them and their door?


For just in the home paddock, going there and coming back,
there's a dozen gates to open, and that's just the homestead track.
He said “They talk of Pearly gates, in stories that they tell.
But when I die I'm going down...there ain't no gates in Hell.''