Rhian Gallagher
A Man from the Backblocks
We were doing the pioneers.
They’d come from England with horses and linen,
pianos and tea, rowed from the ships
to the bay. They cleared the bush
from the coast all the way back to the foothills
and the land was fenced into squares.
Overcast photographs of men in boaters,
braces, and waistcoats, and the women
in wide hooped skirts - dressed
for a rose garden in the middle of a muddy
backyard. Starched, all backbone,
as if they weren’t looking at a camera
but a frontier - hard and hostile and bare.
There were dates and wars and more immigrations
and almost lost in the noise
of that lesson - a man who had lived
out in the backblocks, wanted to fly.
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