PURE GOLD.
© Ron Boughton. April ‘24
I’d wandered down the Mayne Street of historic Gulgong town,
where ‘People’s Poet’ Henry is the jewel in the crown.
So thus I did arrive, at his museum’s entry door,
although I’d made that pilgrimage so many times before!
So once again, there I was, absorbed in his life and work,
from squalid city streets out to the dusty back of Bourke.
And people long forgotten would emerge on many page
and in old photographs, some badly mottled …just from age.
Fulfillment was the happy feeling when back on the street
for that excursion with Henry, was once again a treat!
Museums, it seemed to be, were the calling of the day,
for next it was the ‘Pioneers’ in Herbert Street, up the way.
When age can cloud the memories of our history past
they’re easily revived here, in this superb collection vast!
One enters into a time warp of all things yesteryear,
saluting those who faced the hardships of a new frontier!
All accolades go to those, who maintain and volunteer
and also those, who came up with the original idea!
If artifacts are not preserved, they are, forever gone
and links to our past are blank, as generations move on.
I ventured back to Mayne to the Holtermann museum there,
a gallery of glass plate photographs, in great repair!
Hard to believe, how sharp they are, all in the days of gold
and some about the time, when Henry was but Five years old!
There’s quite a few with animals, some looking quite downcast
and easy to see they are not, pampered pets from the past!
But if you love a bit of history, of this, our great land
in regions where the fortune hunters for gold, mined and panned,
go out on Henry’s birthday and visit old Gulgong town,
as they celebrate with Grenfell in festivals of renown!
With great parades of history including ladies with big hats
and men with scratchy whiskers, wishing Henry big congrats!
