Denis Kevans

Hey, Banjo, have you heard, mate, what has happened to the run,
Where you rode with old Pat Kiley, 'neath the hot, Monaro sun?
     Where you stirred your pipe and choked it,
     Thumbed a wad of weed and stoked it,
Lit the flames, that lit the pictures, in the minds of everyone?

Fresh from 'chambers', Banjo, shyly, you would yarn with old Pat Kiley,
     As he talked of 'the old fulla', and his plans for Kiley's Run.
'The old fulla', Bill, a Kiley from oul' Ireland, tough and wiley,
     Ticket-of-leave man, sent from Sydney with a dray, an axe and gun.

And Banjo, you'll remember, each blooming, sweet September,
     How you bid the streets of Sydney an eager, fond farewell
And where honey-suckle chalices clustered sweet on Kiley's trellises,
     You woke up, murmuring poetry, to the sound of the kitchen bell.

See you push through lushest grasses, as the cloud's flotilla passes,
     See you listen to the stories of the Snowy River men,
Troy, Dunne and MacNamara, Cummins, Guy and Mick O'Mara,
     Yarned and threw away their memories, till your rhyming kicked again.

There, where warm embers beckoned, old riders yarned and reckoned
     That the man from Snowy River was a feller called Fitzroy,
Or was it another Kiley or that Irish bloke, Jack Riley,
     And throw in another candidate, the stockman Jackie Troy.

There, for the Australian Nation, you wrote 'A Mountain Station',
     While savage critics slammed you as, "A versifying cub,"
'On Kiley's Run', you wrote it, no need now for me to quote it
     And one of your favourite poems, 'The Geebung Polo Club'.

It was there you met Old Clancy, his name was Thomas Francie
     McNamara, the trees were silent witnesses of everything was said,
And your eager mind it relished all the yarns, with wine embellished,
     And 'The Man From Snowy River' started galloping through your head.

With the cut-out for the shearing, all the sulkies would be steering
     To the big dance there at Kiley's, all around the polished hall.
And the ball it was a boomer for the hospital in Cooma,
     And Kiley trailed the native flowers all around the rough-hewn wall.

There were Geebung-style schottisches and a tub or two of Resch's.
     The cut-out balls at Kiley's would give 'em all a thrill.
With the waltz and the mazurka, the odd bog-eye gone berserk
     And barn-dances and set lancers and a brolga-like quadrille.

Kiley showed you all his ledgers, braid was fraying on the edges,
     Where he wrote, in looping long hand, all the records of the run.
Those ledgers, bound and leathered, with the shoulders worn and weathered,
     Were kept in careful cupboards, they weren't shown to everyone.

And to you he demonstrated the concept he'd created,
     'Cause you saw the ditto commas running down the columns blue,
Where he paid, in equal wages, all his workers, at all stages,
     Whether black, or white, or brindle, whether male or female, too.

Yes, there on Kiley's station, it was a united nation,
     With no discrimination and the words I say are true.
Hard to think if there'll be ever, now or then or maybe never,
     Such another mountain station or another Kiley, too.

Kiley spoke the wild Wiradjuri and the dialects of Jackadgerie.
     He talked to elder Kooris, took him to a secret part
Where the gentle dawn came beaming on the places of their dreaming
     And Kiley kept their sacred secrets, forever safe, inside his heart.

Well, Banjo, do you know, mate, what has happened to the show, mate?
     To the run the Kileys planted in the hills of sun and snow?
To that place called Adjungbilly, you must think that I am silly,
     It was sold for radiata just a few short years ago!

"Sold it?" "Yeah, for radiata, you know that green stigmata
     That porcupines the mountains and sucks the country dry?
That bogs the creeks and fills in, all the little streams, with quills
     And dams of little, steely needles, and I think I'm gonna cry."

Banjo's eyes turned to me, wary, was I dolt or dromedary,
     To gouge an old man's feelings, who was out of touch with all.
But he took my hand to test it and he pressed it and he blessed it.
     And he believed me, yes, believed me and I saw his tear-drops fall.

Where his muse used to waken to whispering pines forsaken,
     Where he hung his reins and bridle, there is nothing there at all.
And we found the ledgers tasselled and by snails' feet, razzle-dazzled,
     In a heap of rotting rubbish, just beside a broken wall.

So, Banjo, we'll walk grieving for the things that Time is thieving,
     But we'll take a banshee with us and I'll hug her silken waist,
So her wild song never ceases on the last of the snow leases,
     For the sleet of dispossession is a bitter sleet to taste.

Kiley's Run, or Adjungbilly? I must be 'Uncle Willie',
     Banjo's shrine of shrines, to snatch it and plant the pine thereon?
A place we should have cherished, but in us, now, has perished,
     But inside your heart, Banjo, mate, and mine, the flame goes burning on!