Quotes about timber, page 3
NEW TIMBER vs. OLD TIMBER
On New Timber rain-drenched moss play house, leaf-moulds drift,
Under it’s trysty loafing shade, lust ransacked love & both did embrace,
Gilded wantonness & robed disarray unveiled in shoulders bare,
Solemnized with names etched in the bark, kiss to seal the
betrothal in the dark.
New timber’s uniform surfaces ooze, forest breath caught in it’s knots,
Where in each whiff of coquettish spring, a yearning glance is cast,
Pours sticky resin to contain pockets, with juices that expand & contract
Like the cursing &lamentations, of those fearing despair’s intruding stomp.
To the gang saw’s rip, the fallen log gnarls; curls &splits, a shattering wail,
Forest still resounds in shrieks; bows &warps, congruous with lover’s snarl,
In blood-draining tannin, admits worldly things to break their heart, dismays,
As drains blood in pale cheeks of the revelers, - as they part ways.
Often Old wood dispels a woodsy smell, sawed; of many winters betrays,
Let’s a sigh, , like a bullet report or a sullen whimper, tempts hearts to abide time
In borrowed vigor, faiths pledged, by those that patiently wooed & wept,
In secret dread, plan days ahead, listen to destiny’s faint advancing step.
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poem by Seema joglekar
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Paul Bunyan
He rode through the woods on a big blue ox,
He had fists as hard as choppin' blocks,
Five hundred pounds and nine feet tall...that's Paul.
Talk about workin', when he swung his axe
You could hear it ring for a mile and a half.
Then he'd yell'Timber!' and down she'd fall...for Paul.
Talk about drinkin', that man's so mean
That he'd never drink nothin' but kerosene,
And a five-gallon can is a little bit small...for Paul.
Talk about tough, well he once had a fight
With a thunderstorm on a cold dark night.
I ain't sayin' who won,
But it don't storm at all...round here...thanks to Paul.
He was ninety years old when he said with a sigh,
'I think I'm gonna lay right down and die
'Cause sunshine and sorrow, I've seen it all...says Paul.
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poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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The Little Worn Out Pony
There's a little worn-out pony this side of Hogan's shack
With a snip upon his nuzzle and a mark upon his back;
Just a common little pony is what most people say,
But then of course they've never heard what happened in his day:
I was droving on the Leichhardt with a mob of pikers wild,
When this tibby little pony belonged to Hogan's child.
One night it started raining – we were camping on a rise,
When the wind blew cold and bleakly and thunder shook the skies;
The lightning cut the figure eight around the startled cattle,
Then down there fell torrential rains and then began a battle.
In a fraction of an instant the wild mob became insane,
Careering through the timber helter-skelter for the plain.
The timber fell before them like grass before a scythe,
And heavy rain in torrents poured from the grimly blackened sky;
The mob rushed ever onward through the slippery sodden ground,
While the men and I worked frantically to veer their heads around;
And then arose an awful cry – it came from Jimmy Rild,
For there between two saplings straight ahead was Hogan's child.
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poem by Anonymous Oceania
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Song of the Artesian Water
Now the stock have started dying, for the Lord has sent a drought;
But we're sick of prayers and Providence -- we're going to do without;
With the derricks up above us and the solid earth below,
We are waiting at the lever for the word to let her go.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we'll sink it deeper down:
As the drill is plugging downward at a thousand feet of level,
If the Lord won't send us water, oh, we'll get it from the devil;
Yes, we'll get it from the devil deeper down.
Now, our engine's built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot,
And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he don't know what is what:
When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs,
She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
If we fail to get the water, then it's ruin to the squatter,
For the drought is on the station and the weather's growing hotter,
But we're bound to get the water deeper down.
But the shaft has started caving and the sinking's very slow,
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poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Murray's Ride
I seldom get to hatin' men, nor had much cause to hate;
To me, it just a foolish game to play, at any rate.
But it kills the hard thought in you, an' forgiveness is complete,
To see the man you hated once a maimed thing at your feet.
We'd had a meetin' at the mill; the boss had said his say
The good old boss, who stints himself to find the men their pay
He told us, fair an' honest, he was up against the game
Unless he got the timber out before the Winter came.
I'll say this much for decent men - an' decent men they were
They saw the game that Murray played to give the boss a scare.
We saw he'd pay near anything and Ben would do him brown;
But a fair thing is a fair thing; so we truned Ben Murray down.
A truck was waitin' in the yard, full-loaded for the trip.
Just an easin' of the brake-rope was enough to let her rip
For half a mile or more down-hill along atrack, rough-made,
To where the horses wait to haul her up the other grade.
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Lex Talionis
To beasts of the field, and fowls of the air,
And fish of the sea alike,
Man's hand is ever slow to spare,
And ever ready to strike ;
With a license to kill, and to work our will,
In season by land or by water,
To our heart's content we may take our fill
Of the joys we derive from slaughter.
And few, I reckon, our rights gainsay
In this world of rapine and wrong,
Where the weak and the timid seem lawful prey
For the resolute and the strong ;
Fins, furs, and feathers, they are and were
For our use and pleasure created,
We can shoot, and hunt, and angle, and snare,
Unquestioned, if not unsated.
I have neither the will nor the right to blame,
Yet to many (though not to all)
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Ole Tam On Bord-A-Plouffe
I lak on summer ev'ning, w'en nice cool win' is blowin'
An' up above ma head, I hear de pigeon on de roof,
To bring ma chair an' sit dere, an' watch de current flowin'
Of ole Riviere des Prairies as she pass de Bord-a Plouffe.
But it seem dead place for sure now, on shore down by de lan'in'--
No more de voyageurs is sing lak dey was sing alway--
De tree dey're commence growin' w'ere shaintee once is stan'in',
An' no one scare de swallow w'en she fly across de bay.
I don't lak see de reever she's never doin' not'in'
But passin' empty ev'ry day on Bout de l'ile below--
Ma ole shaloup dat's lyin' wit' all its timber rottin'
An' tam so change on Bord-a Plouffe since forty year ago!
De ice dat freeze on winter, might jus' as well be stay dere,
For w'en de spring she's comin' de only t'ing I see
Is two, t'ree piqnique feller, hees girl was row away dere,
Don't got no use for water now, on Riviere des Prairies.
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poem by William Henry Drummond
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The Bursting of the Boom
The shipping-office clerks are ‘short,’ the manager is gruff—
‘They cannot make reductions,’ and ‘the fares are low enough.’
They ship us West with cattle, and we go like cattle too;
And fight like dogs three times a day for what we get to chew. . . .
We’ll have the pick of empty bunks and lots of stretching room,
And go for next to nothing at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show:
Then when the Boom bursts is our time to go.
We’ll meet ’em coming back in shoals, with looks of deepest gloom,
But we’re the sort that battle through at the Bursting of the Boom.
The captain’s easy-going when Fremantle comes in sight;
He can’t say when you’ll get ashore—perhaps tomorrow night;
Your coins are few, the charges high; you must not linger here—
You’ll get your boxes from the hold when she’s ‘longside the pier.’
The launch will foul the gangway, and the trembling bulwarks loom
Above a fleet of harbour craft—at the Bursting of the Boom.
So wait till the Boom bursts!—we’ll all get a show;
He’ll ‘take you for a bob, sir,’ and where you want to go.
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poem by Henry Lawson
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The Story of Mongrel Grey
This is the story the stockman told
On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright;
The moon rose up like a globe of gold
And flooded the plain with her mellow light.
We watched the cattle till dawn of day
And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey.
He was a knock-about station hack,
Spurred and walloped, and banged and beat;
Ridden all day with a sore on his back,
Left all night with nothing to eat.
That was a matter of everyday
Normal occurrence with Mongrel Grey.
We might have sold him, but someone heard
He was bred out back on a flooded run,
Where he learnt to swim like a waterbird;
Midnight or midday were all as one --
In the flooded ground he would find his way;
Nothing could puzzle old Mongrel Grey.
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poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Peter Simson's Farm
Simson settled in the timber when his arm was strong and true,
And his form was straight and limber; and he wrought the long day through
In a struggle, single-handed, and the trees fell slowly back,
Twenty thousand giants banded ’gainst a solitary jack.
Through the fiercest days of summer you might hear his keen axe ring
And re-echo in the ranges, hear his twanging crosscut sing;
There the great gums swayed and whispered, and the birds were skyward blown,
As the circling hills saluted o’er a bush king overthrown.
Clearing, grubbing, in the gloaming, strong in faith the man descried
Heifers sleek and horses roaming in his paddocks green and wide,
Heard a myriad corn-blades rustle in the breeze’s soft caress,
And in every thew and muscle felt a joyous mightiness.
So he felled the stubborn forest, hacked and hewed with tireless might,
And a conqueror’s peace went with him to his fern-strewn bunk at night:
Forth he strode next morn, delighting in the duty to be done,
Whistling shrilly to the magpies trilling carols to the sun.
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poem by Edward George Dyson
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