ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Seems a scarcity of new writings lately and I am certainly guilty. I haven't written anything new for yonks so I'm posting one that has been here before. I did add a few more verses.

Lobby Holes and Butterfly Nets

I reach back to a childhood; to another time and place.
It’s photos cached in albums of my mind.
Where sun filled summer weekends set my eager soul to soar.
Where sparrow hawks and thermal winds combined.

The images I conjure fill the long hours of my night.
They take me to a calmer day and time.
A time of languid wanderings cross clover covered fields,
beneath a sea of close hauled clouds sublime.

Sustained by joy I ramble the pathways of old roamings;
a dreamer, both battle scarred and seasoned.
And there I find a carefree world of dignity and grace;
tranquil, nothing scheduled, planned, or reasoned.

And my freedom? Never questioned. Time spent of no accord.
Of the passing hours just the sun keeps score.
And limits? Yes! Curbed only by my imagination.
The world is mine to marvel and explore.

There are trees to climb; stones to throw; lobby holes to plunder.
Streams to bridge and brand new trails to blaze.
Sparrow hawks are circling high, on summer’s rising thermals
and all around me nature paints my days.

Lost memories are screening in the theatre of my dreams;
wide skies of azure blue and paddocks green.
My world is rich with sounds and sights that fill my very soul;
a landscape, painted, peaceful and serene

And the pictures move to soothe me. To calm my sleepless hours,
until my thoughts surrender to the night.
As the echoes of my childhood, fade soft in morning haze,
I wake content, to one more dawning’s light.

Love it, Wazza - we are obviously blessed with similar childhood memories!

Funnily enough, I've been dreaming of my childhood a bit lately - it seems to go in cycles with me. But lobby holes definitely feature strongly! In fact, we lived in a lowset timber house and underneath the bottom front step a lobby lived happily for years. He became somewhat of a pet and would come up for meat on a string.

The concreting beneath the front steps was postponed until he finally died!

That was in the days when it was wetter here in SE Queensland!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane

Cheers
Shelley

Thanks Shelley, there was a lot of bush around the suburb I grew up in and several holes that filled after run off from the rain. They would stay full for months and there were always lobbies in them. Great memories... I'd leave home early on weekends and be back in time for dinner that night. Parents never were troubled by my wanderings. I'd better stop there. My glasses are getting rosier by the second.
Wazza

Excuse me Wazza, what is a 'lobby?'

Hi Wen

As far as I know, what we call "lobbies" are the same as what you call "yabbies". So they are the fresh water small lobster-type crustacean found in creeks, backwaters and generally boggy country. "Going lobbying" was a great pastime for kids to entice from their holes with meat on string (or at least it used to be in our day!!)

Our "yabbies" are much smaller, salt water creatures that have holes that become exposed at low tide - from where they are pumped out and used as fishing bait.

Cheers
Shelley

Like Wendy I'd never heard the word "lobby" in this context, so thanks for the explanation, Shelley. Yabbies I do know about. Love the sense of nostalgia you've created here, Wazza, and it takes me back to my "roaming-free" childhood days...even if they were suburban!

Cheers
David

I can remember the odd day being absent from school and spending the time down at the local creek
chasing the little mates.

Pulling them in slowly until they were above your hand and then tossing them out.

Still enjoy chasing a few when out and about on our trips but the old net comes in handy these days.

Enjoyed the read mate.


Merv.

Thanks all. Sorry for not responding earlier. A lobby (short for lobster) is a fresh water crayfish. The ones we used to catch in the water holes were never large, 7 or 8 centimetres pulled them up. This may have been because of the environment, small holes that filled with water after rain.
Thanks Wendy, Shelley, David, Merv. Glad you enjoyed the litttle trip into another time.