Willie Remembers

Miles from the city the noise and the smoke
Where the wind soughs and wails in the she oak
And where the creek from the mountain every night and day
Down towards the ocean it babbles on it's way.

Where in the mornings small flocks of Weerloos
Otherwise known as yellow tailed black cockatoos
With their strong beaks shred the hard cones on the monterey
pine
For the small dark seeds on which they love to dine.

In changeable weather in Summer and Fall
The loud peals of thunder Willie still recall
And as lightening streaked through the gray rainy sky
The rufous whistler sang in the woodlet nearby.

Willie remembers his country boyhood
Late in the evening in the quiet wood
Boobook owl called on the moonlit gum trees
His younger days for him hold good memories.

Willie remembers when he was a boy
His father told him when the swallows flew high
That of sunny weather we would have a spell
Creatures of Nature have secrets to tell.

The ex country fellow still fancy he see
Tree creeper climb up the trunk of a tree
All day he climbs trees upwards from the ground
And his instincts tell him where insects can be found.

Of the creek from the highlands that babbles downhill
He retains the finest of mental pictures still
And Willie remembers where he lived as a boy
One hundred miles from here as the crow would fly.