In my Grade 12 year there was a poem in our required reading. My memory of it is that it was about a sports field, perhaps at sunset when the game is over. In the quiet you can feel the spirit of the game, the energy, the striving. I remember that line or near enough to it "o vine grow strong upon that bone". The poem must have in some way been about the spirit of life that lingers on and perhaps only changes form.
I would appreciate any help.
Here you go:
Bullocky
by Judith Wright
Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used this road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
While past the campfire's crimson ring
the star struck darkness cupped him round.
and centuries of cattle-bells
rang with their sweet uneasy sound.
Grass is across the wagon-tracks,
and plough strikes bone across the grass,
and vineyards cover all the slopes
where the dead teams were used to pass.
O vine, grows close upon that bone
and hold it with your rooted hand.
The prophet Moses feeds the grape,
and fruitful is the Promised Land.
Les
Les ...thank you. It appears my memory is not as good as I thought it was. I suppose it was 40 years ago unfortunately.I cannot help but feel however that I have mixed two poems in my mind and that the other in fact exists...about the sports field...or is it just my own inklings about the spirit of the game hanging in the air when the game is done?
Thanks again and cheers
Les, thanks for posting that. From a great writer, and one of my favourite Australian poems.
In the second line of the penultimate stanza, Judith Wright wrote 'beneath the grass' not 'across the grass'. The version with 'across' was a mistake (hardly a misprint, so presumably an unauthorised alteration) made years afterwards by a publisher of her selected works. I complained to the publisher, and the result was a nice letter from Judith confirming that 'across' was wrong and it should be 'beneath'. Nevertheless the error keeps getting repeated. She's no longer around to repudiate it.
Also, the typo gremlin is ever lurking to sabotage the innocent. In the last line of the second stanza it should be 'his' road; and in the last stanza it should be 'grow' not 'grows'.
Ian
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2005 05:06AM by IanB.
Thanks, Les, but you still need to correct 'grows' to 'grow' in L1 of the last stanza.
Ok, last attempt, to correct the typos, Ian:
Bullocky
by Judith Wright
Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used his road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
While past the campfire's crimson ring
the star struck darkness cupped him round.
and centuries of cattle-bells
rang with their sweet uneasy sound.
Grass is across the wagon-tracks,
and plough strikes bone beneath the grass,
and vineyards cover all the slopes
where the dead teams were used to pass.
O vine, grow close upon that bone
and hold it with your rooted hand.
The prophet Moses feeds the grape,
and fruitful is the Promised Land.
Les