When Terry's away, I have his laptop to play

G'day,

While old Terry's away at his writing group Wordsmiths of Melton, I thought I'd go through a few of his poems and see if I could find one to give me some inspiration and write one of mine. This is the one I found, he hasn't finished it yet, but I'll push him into it over the next couple of days. I'm sure he won't mind me putting it up. I'll try to do something along the same lines, but give it a modern twist to the theme of Heading Home.

Watch out for it in the next couple of days.

Heading Home

Every Saturday I’d see him as he struggled from his seat,

He’d grab his battered leather hat and thrust it on his head

His bright old eyes would dart around looking for his walking stick

“Where the bloody hell you been?” were his words to welcome you

But his grip still firm as iron as he would shake you by the hand

Independent over eighty years and now unsteady on his feet

But those Saturdays were great days you could tell it in his smile

Into that old red Falcon Ute he’d climb and pull his seat belt on

“Come on man what’s keeping you” he’d growl, trying not to grin

I’d slam the door shut on his side and run 'round to take the wheel

I’d turn the key and start the beast and slip her into gear, let out the clutch

And then off we’d go North up the road and made a merry mile

For not many now would know it but the old bloke liked to sing

And I swear that he’d lose thirty years as his memory wandered back

“They’ll never fix this ruddy road” you would hear him reminisce

With an arm out of the window the terrain he would point out

Of where the trains crashed one dark night just south of Walloway

Then through the gravel creek we’d lurch sending dust and stones about

“Where’d you learn to drive like that? Keep it up and your neck I’ll ring”

We would head up through the hills of Eurelia and on to Carrieton

And like sometimes he’d like to stop at the pub to yarn and have a beer

For the pub had brought him friendship and he’d seen them come and go

Keith Rasheed had the pub these days and treated the old man right

‘Cause both were born of busman blood and that code they understood

And back into the Ute he’d get and again behind the wheel I’d slide

Then on up the road to Yanyarrie to the land from nature he had won

He really would be lively now as we came upon the Old Yanyarrie gate

The dust would barely settle as with a rush the door he’d fling aside

“I’ll get the gate he’d laugh” at me and I know that he was now eighty four

Yet like a five year old he couldn’t wait to get there and take a look around

Down to the old station homestead once a home so strong and warm

And he lingers in the doorway “I remember this,” with misty eyes he tells me

“It’s just here at this old front door. for me that she would wait”

“But come along now” he’d call to me “we had better fetch that wood”

We would drive down past the wooden stockyards of rails made by hand