Bello Ramble poem

Oh this is what it's like sometimes
oh this is how it goes.
A wild colonial boy
in the Bellingen 'Truman Show'.
and this is what it's like sometimes
and this is how it goes.

And it's endless sky and it's mists of grey
and we must do it again.
And it's hi-yi-yi and it's hi-yi-yay
for don't we love Bellingen?

My first wife was the Hyde St clock,
for I said she was always wrong.
I said I was off to the crossroads
she said she couldn't come along.
And just sometimes I get it right –
think it's the times I do it alone.

My second wife was the footpath
on the east of Lavender's Bridge
'cause she was on the wrong side.
Thank Christ we didn't have kids.
Something she said split us apart
and something that I did.

I remember there on Hyde St
I was in the greengrocer's shop
it was about 19-and-76,
the grocer he leapt up,
lowered the roller door with a crash
I wondered what was up.

And it's endless sky and it's mists of grey
and we must do it again.
And it's hi-yi-yi and it's hi-yi-yay
for don't we love Bellingen?

And all was dark within that store
and by the spuds stood I,
and the grocer peeked out through a crack
until the funeral passed by.
When Mrs Reid's cortège had passed
he flung the shutters high.

And I looked out into the street,
for Mrs Reid the town was shut
till shopkeeper after shopkeeper
opened all the shop doors up.
For that was how it was my friends
and on that I won't shut up.

And it's endless sky and it's mists of grey
and we must do it again.
And it's hi-yi-yi and it's hi-yi-yay
for don't we love Bellingen?

And my third wife was the Bellinger
'cause she was new but old.
My fourth wife was September
for she was hot and cold.
My fifth wife I remember
took my silver for her gold.

And my sixth wife was a black cockatoo
whose cry said rain was coming.
My seventh I called the valley,
she set my heart a humming
she set my heart a humming
a billion cicadas drumming!

And it's endless green and it's endless blue,
at the wharf the cedar's still loading.
And lay me down with corroboree
and remember my heart exploding
for this deep soil and my youthful toil
and may I leave nothing owing.

And it's endless sky and it's mists of grey
and we must do it again.
And it's hi-yi-yi and it's hi-yi-yay
for don't we all love Bellingen?

(Copyright Pip Wilson, from my poetry pages)

Categories: bellingen, bellinger, poetry, australian-poetry