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.

[Mehak Mushtaq]

A happy ending. I like it a lot.

[quinfinn]

i was glad this was about a woman. when i first saw the title i thought i was gonna have to shake hands with "W" and that makes me wanna puke. this is a splendid story (as usual) and very skillfully penned. well done, my friend.

[Tate Morgan]

This is a great work i have to say this one touched me.I am easily swayed by the emotion driven pieces.A grand story of the prince as a pauper. Well done dave