Bush Meeting

There are men who meet their one true love

There are men who never do,

And I must admit I was one of these

‘Til the day that I met you,

But there’d been so many heartaches

So much angst with love in the past,

That I didn’t believe my one true love

Could have crossed my path, at last.

 

I had tried to keep away from you

I had tried to turn my back,

Each time I saw you galloping madly

Out on that bare bush track,

You looked a treat on the old black mare

As her hooves came galloping through,

But I bent my head to the fencing wire

Rather than look at you.

 

I thought you must have been taken then,

I thought you couldn’t be free,

You with the wild and haunting stare

You couldn’t be looking at me.

I bored the holes and I set the posts

And I stretched the wire between,

I fenced off most of the valley with

You galloping by, unseen.

 

It all was part of a pattern that

You set, for all of your stay,

Up at the crack of misty dawn

And galloping past my way,

I’d watch you off in the distance once

You passed me, coated in black,

But turned my head with persistence

When you turned, came rumbling back.

 

The season turned from the summer burn

And through to the autumn blow,

Shedding the leaves of the stringy barks

And on to the winter snow,

And still you galloped and still you passed

In the mornings, dressed in black,

The same as your flowing jet black hair

With the white snow at your back.

 

And then on a cold and windy day

The mare came back on its own,

I stood quite still for a sudden chill

Told me that you’d been thrown,

I cranked up the ancient four wheel drive

Drove past the rust on the sign,

For down in the valley, deep in snow

Was a worked out copper mine.

 

You lay spreadeagled, over a scarp

With a twenty metre fall,

Your hair spread out like a Chinese fan

But you didn’t move there at all.

I grabbed the winch, and lowered me down

‘Til I stood, and looked in your eyes,

And that’s when my heart was lost to me

To see where my true love lies.

 

We live in a cabin, made of wood

With a hearth that glows in the dark,

We haven’t got much, some wooden stools

And a table of stringy bark,

There’s a lambskin rug on the parlour floor

Where a baby chuckles and sighs,

And you in your lovelight, baking bread

As I bask in your sparkling eyes.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[David Scott]

I enjoyed the "happy ever after" feel to the end of this. Not every gothic poem ends in misery. You grabbed the reader with the universal theme of finding love and twisted in some metaphores that all lovers can relate to.
Thank you for this fine story.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A true love can be found in a fairytale!

[Valentine]

Oh David, I did not know you had such feelings in you..This is beautiful and going into my favorites file..You are such an amazing writer..Kathie

[spiritwind]

I thought you would kill her off--but what a delightful surprise!
Excellent!
Especially liked The season turned from the summer burn

And through to the autumn blow,

Shedding the leaves of the stringy barks

And on to the winter snow,

And still you galloped and still you passed

In the mornings, dressed in black,

The same as your flowing jet black hair

With the white snow at your back."

You know how to write a storyand illustrate it with your written images

[Marie]

Finally a ballad with a happy ending. And it was so exciting--the way she galloped every day--the way her horse came back in the evening without her. It could have been too late...but it wasn't...

[JM Russell]

Another surprise for me. I had thought she`d be dead. A happy ending! It made me think of how many times we reach for the riches of life and fall short on love. The riches and power mean nothing without that magic of love. This read as beautiful as the story itself.

[keyvan]

It is beautiful......
would you mind tell me about your Clasic poem grammer? beacuse I interested to know that...
thank you.

[Emerald Seas]

A happy ending! I was concerned that this story would end as so many others, love slipping by and realized too late. Wonderful penning, David! They don't have much, but have what they need. Yet, more than they could desire. Lovely ending!

[Anya Myth]

It was so great. The beginning nearly made me cry it was so touching. And the happy end is really beautiful and I was a little confused somewhere in the middle but glad we got that all cleared up.
And it was, as I already said, Beautiful and touching. So just keep writing.

[WingsToFly]

Wow so beautiful described. Very nice imagery and flow.