Goodbye my dear,
And so, it has been another year.
Some days are cloudy, some nights are clear,
You told me that years would move quickly,
And like poor spring roses that are sickly,
Drop their dying petals on the ground,
Pass by, seemingly without a sound.
There, at my feet I see the years past,
And I wonder at how short, how fast,
We each cannot help but grow older,
We each can feel the earth grow colder.
When you died, my daughter, I told her.
Goodbye my dear,
It was my own real and known fear,
Memories you owned disappear,
Those unknown souls in your stories lost,
Vanished like Autumn’s mid-morning frost.
I know they would have laughed and smiled,
Remembering, as you and they wiled
Away hours with talking and tales,
Minutes and hours like hammered-in nails,
Minutes and hours like bricks in a wall,
Long lived lives, loved, lost, seem somehow small,
Names of yours will be hard to recall.
Goodbye my dear,
Your voice, I still can easily hear,
Some memories can still hold a tear,
Your sunshine whistle in the washhouse,
Your young hands hanging out the white blouse,
The mice plague in broken bags of wheat,
The mice plague in rooms about your feet,
There’s me, not taller than the table,
The view, an old barn and a stable,
To a one teacher school, past two gates,
A pie-warmer, burnt crumbs on our plates,
Dust on the road to the house abates.
Goodbye my dear,
Sitting on your lap, the wheel I steer,
Except for pedals and changing gear,
I’m steering, but you are in control,
If I’m left alone, who can console?
Who shall change gear, and the pedals press?
When I need something, who shall say yes?
Who shall bring hilarious laughter,
And our poor aching smiles thereafter?
Who’ll cut onions for tomato sauce?
Who’ll tell the story of the pet horse?
Who’ll say sadness cannot feed remorse?
Goodbye my dear,
When I search hard, I can find you here,
Hear your voice and words come to my ear,
Of stories forgotten and lost,
Of September spring-times turned to frost.
What of your time and my history?
All of our stories now mystery.
What of your history and my time?
Then, what of your reason and my rhyme?
Oftentimes, I believe there was none,
But just a mother, a father, son,
Wheat, visitors, mallee roots and sun.
Goodbye my dear.
Goodbye my dear.
Goodbye my dear.
The long war with Japan is ended,
Rights to wed with children defended,
Both husbands with love she remembers,
The granddaughter gets four Decembers,
And I’m left there standing in the cold,
Wife and daughter’s hand for me to hold,
Now I’m the one who is growing old.
Inalienable Write 