Open your eyes to Australia
In the poem A Strange Dream, the narrator dreams he is searching for a deceased friend named Mulga Mick. Believing Mick to be of a similar nature to himself, he heads for the Gates of Hell, only to learn that his friend is too sinful for Hell. According to the Devil, the only fit place for Mulga Mick is Angledool, to which he is quickly directed.
Continue reading “A Strange Dream”Not everybody could live in town. By necessity, many settlers lived and worked far away from the townships. They were constantly confronted by the loneliness of their existence. Many of the jobs on the frontier were of a solitary nature too, such as boundary riding, fencing and shepherding. How one coped with the solitude faced in frontier regions is the subject of Harper’s poem Myall Grove.
Continue reading “Myall Grove”When driving in country NSW I noticed an old building. Fenced off on a hillside in a paddock, this lonely, discarded little church of local granite stone appeared to have lost its identity and use. Whether harvest or drought, birth or death, gain or loss, war or peace, the church was expected to always be there and find some meaning in it all. And now churches are quietly vanishing from the landscape, ‘their future … denied’.
Continue reading “There is a Green Hill (song)”
Verse 1
From Mudgee to Lithgow
She’s always travelling ‘round
Or maybe out Coolah way
Where the Black Stump can be found Continue reading “Syrian Mary – Lyrics”