Bushman's Dawn

In the hush of the dawn, where the wattle blooms sway,

An Aussie bushman starts his day.

The brumbies are hidden, the morning is fresh,

His life is written in the land's rough mesh.

He walks the path of Lawson's tales,

Through spinifex grass and dusty trails.

The sun casts a glow on the old man’s tracks,

A life lived fully, no moment lax.

The billy boils on a fire of coals,

The bushman's yarns, they soothe our souls.

His hands are rugged, his skin leathered and tight,

Carved by the bush where stars crown the night.

His swag rolls tight, his hat slung low,

A life in the scrub, all he cares to know.

The kookaburra laughs as if it knows

The secrets he keeps where the river bends and flows.

He's seen drought's wrath and flood's fierce rage,

Each turn of the earth, a new page.

But like the gum stands firm in a wild storm's test,

He's sturdy, unyielding, the bushman's best.

Under the shade of a coolabah tree,

He rests, while cicadas sing in a jubilee.

The land is his master, and he its son,

A bond unbroken since time begun.

In the style of old Henry, a legend he stands,

With the heart of the bush, and the work of his hands.

For the bushman's the backbone, the story, the muse,

In the dust of the outback, where life's never a ruse.

The stars wheel over, the night sky calls,

The bushman, in his humpy, as the darkness falls.

His legacy written in the red desert sand,

An ode to the spirit of the bushman's land.

© Peter Pickering 2023. www.peterpickering.com