ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

The Ruins – A Whisper in the Silence

Can you sense the past around you here, or is it only me,
as we wander through these ruins of a town that used to be?
Listen! – do you hear that noise out there - or is it just the breeze,
as it whispers to the blue bush, and then stirs the nearby trees?

There is always something spooky at these places after dark,
even though there’s filtered moonlight here; the scene remains quite stark,
Not a soul lives near here; yet you sense a presence just the same,
as you look around this ruin with its long forgotten name.

Do you feel a kind of sadness as you think about its past
and those once exciting days here, when they thought the gold would last?
When the shanties buzzed here nightly as the rumours spread around,
leading men to dream of fortunes waiting somewhere to be found.

Then you look towards a graveyard high upon a nearby hill,
where the old town’s only residents are resting up there still.
On the calmest nights you hear it; though there’s not a thing in sight,
just a whisper in the silence of an outback summers night.

© T.E. Piggott

I bet you have come across a few places like this in your travels Terry - A very atmospheric feel to this one making good use of the prompt to craft it..Nicely done.

Thanks Maureen

I was trying to build the atmosphere so that the prompt could be used in a manner that made sense.
I was pleased the way it fitted nicely into the last line, and it seemed to work well - to me at least.

Cheers Terry

You have succeeded 100% in bringing this atmosphere across Terry; it conjures up beautiful and poignant images and reminds me of several places I have been where I've experienced those same feelings. I love this.

Thanks Catherine
As Maureen suggested I have been to many such places, although it would be an exaggeration to call some of them ruins.
Often all that's left are piles of rusty cans and bottles, with a liberal scattering of (what I suppose you'd call them artifac's) scattered around the site.
Many of the smaller towns were soon abandoned when another strike took place or the gold ran out.
People would then more or less cart what passed for buildings to the next place, leaving just their rubbish and their dead behind.

I know a few stories about some of those towns and have often thought about trying to write a poem and perhaps a yarn about a couple a couple of them, but so far have never managed to get the mood right to write them, if that makes sense.

Cheers

Terry

Great word picture, Terry! I was immediately transported back to the day we visited Mary Kathleen - not a relic of gold, but uranium mining. This is exactly how I felt.

Cheers, Shelley

It certainly did work well Terry ... haunting ... does it tempt you take up the old fossicking tools?
Wazza

Thanks Shelley

There's something about those old sites isn't there.

G/day Wazza

In a heartbeat mate If I thought I was up to it.

My health is pretty good now but I realize I couldn't do what needs to be done to do it seriously.
Hope to have a bit of a swing soon though, but more on a sort of hobby basis - hate that word.

Cheers mate

Terry