Carmel Wooding (nee Dunn)

     Retiring
     © Carmel Wooding

I thought it would be easy to leave this place behind,
Pack up me gear and head on down the track.
I thought I had no links or bonds; no ties of any kind,
So why is it I find I’m looking back?

Why does my heart weigh heavily? I know that I must try
To walk away from the homestead streaked with rust.
But my boots feel like they’re made of lead, there’s a dampness in my eye
I’ll explain away with this good old country dust.

I think of times that wait in town, my mates, their hardships drowned,
Knowing not a longing for this life.
They’d scoff at its simplicity, the working of some ground
And the kindness of a cocky’s widowed wife.

I’ve always waltzed Matilda from the time I was a boy
And now my hair grows silver by the day.
I’d trek the bush from town to town, it brought my life such joy:
Honest work would earn me honest pay.

And I thought that it was Paradise, it was my treasured crown,
No burden of a family’s heavy load.
And I thought that I would die out there, one day I’d just lay down
And they’d bury me somewhere along the road.

But my legs are growing stiffer and my back is not the same
As it had been in those free days of my youth.
And I cringe to walk those many miles on the dusty outback plain.
I think it’s time I recognised the truth.

‘Cause my mind, it flickers back to when I left the place today,
Remembering the words the widow said,
“You’ve worked hard for me, Mister. If you’re ever back this way
I’ll exchange your friendship for a comfy bed.

It’s nice to have a man around,” there was sadness in her tone,
“The place has gone to pieces since Jim died.
He loved this scrappy piece of land, I can’t manage it alone.”
Then she put her head into her hands and cried.

Y’know, I think that I will take it up, turn back towards the place,
Be a farmin’ man and give this game away.
Let dust from her land mingle with the sweat upon my face,
Contented work; and earn my honest pay.