This poem is in a book A Wild Blue Wander.
When the strangling scrub has you by the neckAnd you’re dangling like a suspended wreckWith your body bruised, your clothing torn,And you curse the day you were ever born,For your strength is sapped and your mind’s a messAnd you scream out loud in the wilderness:“If I died right now I could not care less!”Look, don’t be such a knocker ...Behave like a dignified hard man bush walker.
When you’re cold as ice and the zipper’s jammedAnd your bags are wet and the tent is crammedWith a mess of gear and assorted oddsSuch as water pools and profaning bods,And the storm’s set in for a week or moreAnd a creek is running beneath the floorTill you cry out” “God, I can’t take no more!Life has dealt me one helluva shocker!” ...Remember this: you are a hard man bush walker.
When the track is mud and each hidden logIs designed to tip you into the bog,There to writhe, revolve and curse and spitLike a fly submerged in a lump of shit;And its hailing hard and the scrub’s thick-packed,And survival’s odds against you are stackedWhen you realise: “I have finally cracked!”Look, (unlike a stereotypical ocker) ...You must hold to the way of the hard man bush walker.
When the loggerheads wield their screaming sawsAnd bulldozers are frothing at the jaws,When the government’s waffle and verbal spewHas sadly disillusioned you;When the bush you knew so alive and deepComes crashing down in a screaming heapAnd you cry out: “God it makes me weep,The world is off its rocker!” ...Stop. Be as the proverbial hard man bush walker.
When you’ve lived a life full of storm and floodAnd have earnt your years with sweat and blood,Take time to think, look back, be gladAnd admit it, yes, it was not that bad;Though your breath is weak and you’re fading fastHow relentlessly do the seasons pass –When suddenly you are free at lastAnd away you will fly, to where? Who knows? Not I ...And – like the hard man bush walker you are – you will die.
Colin is from Sydney and has his poems published by Greenaissance Books. The poems have thoughts and experiences of Col’s explorations in NSW's Blue Mountains, the woodlands of Sydney’s near south coast, the south-east forests and the rainforests of north Queensland. The main website is Greenaissance. See also Bushwalker magazine.
Gold and white North-north-west
Bushwalk
