When dawn comes and softly grows,
we pray each moment delivers what we want,
short of cauldron calls in the inclement row.
In my childhood I was underneath the stands,
walking long into the lonely wind,
where other spectators gathered and groaned,
old aches and tramps pegged down.
I heard them crack, puffed up on phlegm,
and the last body rags of the fifties.
The crab trees of my relatives grew surly,
godknows where he gets it all from,
makes things up,
people pay the little bastard,
even when they ache in both ears!
My birthright was often questioned.
As I got older, and the stories grew,
selling them to the afternoon paper and radio,
others broke down in the world's cold call,
phonecalls of the heart unanswered.
I heard each one, in the calm air,
before the awful began to arrive,
beyond the soulful sob in darkness,
even wondering if this was my own,
slant wise and haywire.
People began to knock on my door,
zippy-do, we've got work for you,
you'll love to write the song,
won't take long, we'll shout you a meal,
how's that for a deal?
I never trusted missionaries,
fatted like calves in well kept rooms.
I dressed low to measure high,
often talking to mothers - they were safer,
cooking me scones and pikelets, dripping with butter,
all for a story and forgettting to nibble daughters.
Later, I heard rumours, and lies,
studying law, becoming full as a beefy bag,
carrying heads into courtrooms,
dumping them down as I left town.
My family thinks war has to be declared,
unable to recognize the other war,
the one we all fight, whether fast or slow,
learning the enemy is not just around us,
but inside us, where peace seldom comes,
where the past breaks out in our hearts,
and we are all suddenly alone.