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SHEDDING LIGHT ON KELLY
This year's winning entry in the bush verse section
at Grenfell-Henry Lawson Festival Of Arts
A full moon over Greta sheds her tarnished silver light,
making Kelly Country shadows stretch like fingers of the night.
Those images distorted fill a mythic world of dreams,
where the fanciful is courted under spell of lunar beams.
Stretching truth she weaves her story -
matching tales of shame and glory
of an outlaw in a helmet that he'd fashioned from a plough:
drawing sympathy from friction
in a hero's benediction;
for the facts have merged with fiction in the shades of here and now.
When the Irish lived with famine during transportation times,
it was wise to carry influence if called to task for crimes.
The commoners were damned to starve or damned to risk and steal,
knowing seven years of work abroad was lay-by for a meal.
In those days of desperation,
'twas the lottery of station
mainly separated felons and the judge who sent them down:
moralising from position
with a pious admonition;
it was hardly his decision if a wretch should swim or drown.
In the climate of corruption as Australia made her start,
there were few could tell the villains and the peacemakers apart.
For constables impounded stock, then profited from dealing;
beyond the mantle of their law, such acts were viewed as stealing.
Judiciary protectors,
hand in glove with bent inspectors,
fanned the fires of oppression burning deep in Irish souls.
As the memory of lashes,
and a history of clashes,
raked rebellion from the ashes of those quenched and scattered coals.
On a rustic Greta dwelling next the public spotlight falls:
Ned built the roof from stringybark and adzed its ironbark walls.
The Kelly clan was visited one drowsy Autumn day,
by Constable Fitzpatrick on his mincing dappled bay;
ostensibly for Dan's arrest -
but lust and liquor burned his breast
and sister Kate's affection was the pleasure which he sought.
The Kellys grouped to intercede
and rout Fitzpatrick like a weed.
That chastised lawman, duly freed, would call the shots in court.
The setting shifts to Bullock's Creek within the Wombat Ranges:
as Ellen starts a term in gaol, the brooding tempo changes.
Her sons are stilling whisky for the funds to fight her cause,
but traps are out to skin their pelts and claim the spoils of wars.
By Stringybark in evening's hush,
a tragic battle stains the bush;
and crimson-coloured uniforms reflect a bloodied sun.
Three officers are lying dead,
a fourth has snatched his horse and fled;
and bounties rise to mark the heads of outlaws on the run.
The System stands indicted now by many closing ranks:
but waging war on governments shall need "support" from banks.
Euroa and Jerilderie respond to meet those needs:
the colonies are soon a-buzz with gossip of their deeds.
The law is in a state of shock -
a lampooned and a laughing stock -
as Kelly leads his seekers on a wild and hopeless chase.
The Kelly Country's deeply etched -
within his mind each feature's sketched -
and faith, his neck shall not be stretched while he commands the space!
But time becomes the measure and the outlaw meets his match
in trackers they're deploying - so a plan begins to hatch.
The hammering on ploughshares as they yield to glowing forges,
is ringing through the Wombat Range and echoes down its gorges:
a final stand without retreat,
where men-of-iron will brook defeat
and sprouting fables flourish, blending actual with surreal.
For there, in climax at Glenrowan,
bitter seed the System's sown
bears in fruit so wildly grown, of bushmen built from steel.
- © Max Merckenschlager
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