Veronica

The depth of feelings in her dark brown eyes
She is gentle and kindhearted and she's wise
And she has about her such a happy way
And she win you when she smile and say good day.

Her hair is white almost as white as snow
And she was born eighty years ago
Near where Mt Kosciusko reach up towards the sky
Those snowy mountain peaks look wild and high.

She was born in a little mountain shack
South of Mt Kossy by an old dirt track
In that high country miles from the nearest town
Where the high mountain roads wind up and down.

Her dad a shearer him she never knew
He left her mother went with someone new
He did not wait to see his daughter born
And he left forever on an april morn.

The snowy hills remote and too far out
And at six months old her mother took her south
To live near Melbourne City at Fitzroy
On looking back those years just seemed to fly.

One of the brightest pupils at Fitzroy Primary school
She never once sat on the dunce's stool
But higher education then not free
And from Primary school she went to work in factory.

Veronica fell in love at twenty two
With the man she married tall dark handsome Lew
And union of two quite soon grew to three
When she gave birth to their daughter Marie.

But like her dad had done to her mum her husband Lew
Went off one day to live with some one new
Some men are faithless and cannot be true
And the man she loved the man she never knew.

And though she worked to raise her daughter on her own
She won't tell you of hardships she has known
Back in the war years a forsaken wife
But she has met the challenges of life.

A great grand mother for the second time
And her daughter now is well beyond her prime
And she doesn't try to cover the tell tale gray
And wrinkles that the years bring she doesn't hide away.

Her mother brought her from the Snowies years ago
But about that she was far too young to know
And she win you with the warmth of her hello
The woman with hair almost white as snow.