Uncle Clyde

[Zondrae]

This was written in honour of my Uncle and to compete in the Mt Kembla Mining Festival Performance "Poet Of The Mountain" competition 2005. It took out the best poem about Mt Kembla.It is one of my favourites and has won many little awards.

When I was 3 1/2 years old my sister, being older was put in school. Both my parents worked in a dry cleaning factory. I was sent to live for a year with Aunty Tess and Uncle Clyde. I have written several poems about this time of my life. The true stories are always the best.

Uncle Clyde.
© Zondrae King (Corrimal) 07/05

As I rummage through my treasures there’s a faded photograph
of a chubby baby straddling a black mare.
I’m that curly headed toddler. I was only two years old
when my uncle lifted me and sat me there.

Then my uncle was a farrier. He worked the Kembla mines
back when ponies pulled the wagons from the hole.
After work each day he’d head for home, with face and clothing black,
covered with the dust created by the coal.

We would hear him, in the ev’nings, as he cycled up the path.
“All the miners cough like that”, I heard them say.
“But it’s not tuberculosis. Oh it’s nothing, just the dust”
I can see his bloodshot eyes until this day.

In his yard he had an anvil and a forge beside his shed
where the waiting horses lined up near the trough.
For his skill with hoof and horseshoe was well known around the town
and he turned his head away when he would cough.

He would pound the red and glowing rod and bend it into shape
‘til he made each ponys’ shoe the perfect fit.
Then he’d file and trim the plate so that it fixed an errant gait
or would heal a wounded hoof that time had split.

So he worked for forty years, on through the dust, on through the fears.
Fear of layoffs, fear of cave-ins, fear of strikes.
He would wear a leather apron that was thick with sweat and hair
filing hooves and scraping frogs and driving spikes.

He was gentle, tall and balding. He would always have a game.
He would steal my nose then give it back to me.
Or he’d scoop me up and swing me high and put me on his back.
He would feed me bread and dripping for my tea.

He’d recite a little poem ‘bout a lady fair and fat.
He would say Mistress McFadgin was her name.
Oh I must have heard it fifty times, by the open fire
But each time I laughed and loved it just the same.

In the village of Mt Kembla are the ruined pony sheds
where he worked the days he wasn’t down the hole.
Though disasters make news papers, there are others I would choose
to call heroes of the mountain and the coal.

There’s no fanfare, there’s no headlines, there’s no statue large or small
for the men who breathed the dust and slowly died.
Although hist’ry may forget them, there are hundreds just like him.
I will keep my memories of uncle Clyde.

[Neville Briggs]

Zondrae, You could fix that one beside your photograph ( or a photo of uncle ) in a scrapbook or album.

My local stationery shop can photocopy typed material onto clear plastic that sticks down. I've used that to place a poem of mine onto the side of a watercolour painting.
Just a thought.


Neville

[Zondrae]

G'day Neville,

I actually have the photo of "a chubby baby straddling a black mare" and it is me. Makes a great illustration. I have scanned it into my computer and used it in the first of my little books. I only have a few left because they were produced with software in my PC that is no more. I haven't been able to figure out how to get the printer to print double sided yet, so all book production has stopped. I was about to begin running off the collection of most awarded 2005 to 2009 when I discovered the problem.. I'll have to set aside a day to apply myself and get it going. I will still be able to do it but with a lot of manual intervention. Can't be tomorrow. I have to perform at a lunchtime concert supporting Greg North at the Wollongong Art Gallery. Probably only get to do two poems, so a new long one and an old short one. But not Uncle Clyde, this mob have been hearing that one since 2005.