Bucyrus Erie aka Angel ... Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet
There was an old Bucyrus Dozer, sitting outside our front door.
A few ton of yellow metal with tank tracks on the floor.
Her rusted wobbly smoke stack covered up with a jam tin.
She was a dozer we called Angel, an ancient, rusting queen.
When started up she’d quiver until all her pots were pumping,
and when jammed into gear her motor started thumping,
she wheezed and chugged and bellowed like an animal in pain,
and blew perfect little smoke rings from her smoke stack yet again.
These were her angel haloes that hovered overhead
as she trundled down the bush track turning right but never left.
Her previous owner sold her cheap, this old girl he did spurn
for she had a little problem, she couldn’t make left turns.
So it took a little longer to get the hard work done.
For one had to take the scenic route and circle back to come
around, that’s if you really were convinced you must turn left.
Without Angel on our property we’d have been quite bereft.
You could hear her roar for miles, if the boss was out there working
so you didn’t need a GPS to find where she was lurking.
She never once did falter, and she worked for hours each day,
in the hot and dusty paddocks, pushing scrub and rocks and clay.
We put roads ‘cross the property where roads had never been.
Pushed loading ramps, and dam walls, the likes of which you’ve never seen
This grand old yellow dozer, with her scabby peeling paint
was steadfast and reliable, a farmers willing mate.
Alas the farm has been sold off, and our old mate sold too.
With all her faults don’t know quite what the new owner will do
with Angel. Will he work with her, give thanks for what she offers
or send her to the wrecker’s yard? God rot the nasty tosser.
I often think of Angel as she trundled down the track.
Scattering sheep to left and right. She never once looked back.
Do Dozers have a soul? Perhaps they do I don’t quite know
But I hope there is a heaven where old Angel dozers go.
