THE DAY WE CUT IT GREEN - any idea who wrote this

[Maureen K Clifford]

Any one have any idea who might have written this - it is believed to have been printed in the North Queensland Register at Townsville possible around the 1960's - ascertained from the reference to Bodgies in the poem.


THE DAY WE CUT IT GREEN.

‘twas in the vale of Herbert, the sun was going down
the evening I met him, a stranger from the town.
He looked all hot and weary; his strength was nearly done –
carrying a portmanteau that weighed about a ton.
Looking at his clobber and the way he wore his hair
he seemed to be a Bodgie or a kind of city lair.
Says he “ Good morning Mister, I’ve come up from the south,
I read it in the paper and heard by way of mouth,
that fellows with a cane knife can earn a mighty pay
and look upon as chicken feed some twenty quid a day.

I’m going to stick the season and then I and the wife
will trip around the world and be set up for life.”
I looked at him all over, I looked him up and down
and felt a kind of pity for this stranger from the town.
His waistline was too slender, his fingers were too small;
at loading heavy Trojans he be no good at all.
‘tis no place for a sissy on a warm summers day
beside the Herbert River when knives go into play.
But men were scarce as diamonds, what could a fellow do?
I thought if he could stick it he might cut a ton or two.


I said “Go up to quarters – be camping there tonight
and star tomorrow morning as soon as it is light.
There’s good accommodation, a bathroom and a fridge
and if you’re feeling like it, a pub across the bridge.”
The sun rose o’er the valley, its bright rays lit the land
when lo – I saw him coming, a cane knife in his hand.
He doffed his shirt of nylon with many colours dyed,
his golden ring and wrist watch were also laid aside,
then flexing up his muscles and sticking out his chest
seeming full of confidence he started with the rest.


The cane was down and tangled – with billy goat entwined
the further he was getting the more he fell behind.
His Mother had she seen him would never know him there,
he’d cane mud on his forehead and charcoal in his hair.
With grim resolve he battled refusing to give in.
His mind was on the money that he was going to win.
It happened after smoko. His back began to ache
and when the green ant bit him he thought it was a snake.
He threw the knife to blazes and staggered to the shade
and cried out “bring the ambulance. The Ambulance Brigade.”




Maybe if here I say it you’ll be calling me a liar
with sulphur from his lingo, the paddock caught on fire.
He cussed the Herbert River from Gowrie to the sea
and all the sugar cockies from Mossman to Beenleigh.
‘twas when I started thinking of days that I had seen
when we got three and sixpence and had to cut it green.
I pictured the inspector a riding up the flat
his jodphurs and his leggings and gander-billy hat.
You had to treat him civil, should you give him any slack
soon you’d be invested with the order of the sack.

Should you say to the cockie ‘A fire would be alright.’
As certain as the sunrise he’d ask you out to fight.
His wife would stick her mug in and say ‘twas a disgrace
and you’d soon be rolling bluey and getting off the place.
Those days are gone forever and they are little loss
the Miller now is milder and the Cutter is the boss
and Cockie, poor old Cockie, is sandwiched in-between
still moaning like he used to in the days we cut it green.
I’m finished with the cane knife, I’m sitting in the shade,
a bottle here beside me and it’s not Lemonade.

I think how times have altered, the world is changing fast
every year we enter is different from the last,
the horses neigh has ended, the ridge now holds their bones
if bush fires haven’t got them, ‘mong bladey grass and stones.
The men I used to cut with, now most of them have gone.
They never write and tell me how they are getting on.
I can’t do much about it, but smoke the odd doogan
and think of how we yakkered in the days we cut it green