TALL TREES - AND SLEEPING GIANTS
Posted: Mon May 09, 2011 2:32 pm
TALL TREES - AND SLEEPING GIANTS
I came across this bloke last Sunday, standing nonchalant there at the bar
I said ‘G’day Mate how you doin’?’ He said ‘Fine Mate. Nice day, travelled far?’
He’d picked me straight off as a stranger – maybe because I wore a cap
when the blokes out here wear Akubras and I doubt that there's one that does rap.
We struck up easy conversation – I shouted a round as one does
and asked him to tell me about this small town which was where I currently was.
It seemed he’d been a timber getter – when he still had youth on his side.
It’s a young bloke’s game, and for it he’d been famed, but he’d no longer strength in his stride.
“I have worked in the woods behind Stanley, in the days when the sawmills were king.
When we cut stringy bark from the forests and the hills to our axe blows did ring.
We cut box and felled radiata, that termite proof green cypress pine.
Put hard woods and soft to the blade then, and we milled thousands up over time.
With my big crosscut saw I brought down tall trees, how slowly they crash to the ground.
In their heavy descent they bring down a percentage of others for company I've found.
A quick trim of the branches and foliage, so the trunk was left barren and bare
then we’d snig it with chains, behind tractors or reins, to the trucks that we had waiting there.
I remember a young bloke called Charlie – oh he was a gun hand with the chains
but one day an accident happened – at Mawbanna, the thought still brings me pain.
You can never round trees be complacent, though you think you know which way they’ll fall.
Sometimes they get hung, or they’ll roll or they’ll slide and that’s when men die I recall.
But there are no mills left in Stanley, all this was a long time ago.
This place we are drinking in once was the mill but to look at it you’d hardly know.
The timbers up there – those big trusses, they were cut from the hillsides out there.
They’re solid as steel, round as a wagon wheel, big Ironbarks, sixty footers I swear.
But the only timber that’s cut here now son, is the deadwood that falls in the storm.
That Peppermint Gum – well that there was one, that had timber that wouldn’t conform.
It cannot be cut, it’s as hard as a nut, been there since the halcyon days.
It’s old and it’s dangerous somewhat like me, and like me it is set in its ways.
But when a tree falls the townsfolk gather round, with their chainsaws and barrows and Utes.
We cut up the branches for firewood and such for you can’t beat a wood fire, they’re beaut.
Bugger pollution, think it’s overrated; a bushfire puts more smoke in the air
than the thin bit of smoke from the fires that we stoke. It’s our town and should be our affair.”
He grew quiet and sombre, he seemed lost in thought and he stared at the far away hill.
I thanked him for yarning said “See you again Mate’ bought him one more beer, paid the bill.
I gathered my rucksack and left through the big doors made from big slabs of Huon Pine
and wondered how old blokes like him felt just watching old traditions lost over time.
But I often have wondered if there are still tall trees and giants left sleeping up there.
Safe now on the hillsides of rocky Tasmania away from the chainsaws that bare
their trunks of the foliage, rip off their limbs and denude them of protective bark.
I hope there are some sleeping giants still remaining – I donk think it’s too much to ask.
Maureen Clifford © 05/11
Hopefully in the deep dark depths of the forests where men no longer venture. Where trails are steep and winding there are still some sleeping giants.
I came across this bloke last Sunday, standing nonchalant there at the bar
I said ‘G’day Mate how you doin’?’ He said ‘Fine Mate. Nice day, travelled far?’
He’d picked me straight off as a stranger – maybe because I wore a cap
when the blokes out here wear Akubras and I doubt that there's one that does rap.
We struck up easy conversation – I shouted a round as one does
and asked him to tell me about this small town which was where I currently was.
It seemed he’d been a timber getter – when he still had youth on his side.
It’s a young bloke’s game, and for it he’d been famed, but he’d no longer strength in his stride.
“I have worked in the woods behind Stanley, in the days when the sawmills were king.
When we cut stringy bark from the forests and the hills to our axe blows did ring.
We cut box and felled radiata, that termite proof green cypress pine.
Put hard woods and soft to the blade then, and we milled thousands up over time.
With my big crosscut saw I brought down tall trees, how slowly they crash to the ground.
In their heavy descent they bring down a percentage of others for company I've found.
A quick trim of the branches and foliage, so the trunk was left barren and bare
then we’d snig it with chains, behind tractors or reins, to the trucks that we had waiting there.
I remember a young bloke called Charlie – oh he was a gun hand with the chains
but one day an accident happened – at Mawbanna, the thought still brings me pain.
You can never round trees be complacent, though you think you know which way they’ll fall.
Sometimes they get hung, or they’ll roll or they’ll slide and that’s when men die I recall.
But there are no mills left in Stanley, all this was a long time ago.
This place we are drinking in once was the mill but to look at it you’d hardly know.
The timbers up there – those big trusses, they were cut from the hillsides out there.
They’re solid as steel, round as a wagon wheel, big Ironbarks, sixty footers I swear.
But the only timber that’s cut here now son, is the deadwood that falls in the storm.
That Peppermint Gum – well that there was one, that had timber that wouldn’t conform.
It cannot be cut, it’s as hard as a nut, been there since the halcyon days.
It’s old and it’s dangerous somewhat like me, and like me it is set in its ways.
But when a tree falls the townsfolk gather round, with their chainsaws and barrows and Utes.
We cut up the branches for firewood and such for you can’t beat a wood fire, they’re beaut.
Bugger pollution, think it’s overrated; a bushfire puts more smoke in the air
than the thin bit of smoke from the fires that we stoke. It’s our town and should be our affair.”
He grew quiet and sombre, he seemed lost in thought and he stared at the far away hill.
I thanked him for yarning said “See you again Mate’ bought him one more beer, paid the bill.
I gathered my rucksack and left through the big doors made from big slabs of Huon Pine
and wondered how old blokes like him felt just watching old traditions lost over time.
But I often have wondered if there are still tall trees and giants left sleeping up there.
Safe now on the hillsides of rocky Tasmania away from the chainsaws that bare
their trunks of the foliage, rip off their limbs and denude them of protective bark.
I hope there are some sleeping giants still remaining – I donk think it’s too much to ask.
Maureen Clifford © 05/11
Hopefully in the deep dark depths of the forests where men no longer venture. Where trails are steep and winding there are still some sleeping giants.