Almanac Poetry: ‘Cliffy’ – Tommy Mallet

 

Cliffy

 

A forgotten old rail trail
rises through gullies and spurs

 

towards the ridge.
Everything bends, turns.

 

 

Occasionally, there’s still an old boiler,
timber carriage, wheels,
buried in green moss and rust,
the remains of an old bridge.

 

But the rail itself, its houses, communities,
way of life,
all made from wood,
are long gone.

 

 

I drive slowly along its old track,
through overgrown, steep rock cuttings
and damp, filtered light,
towards more tree fern harvesting.

The coupe’s pine,
grown tall and old, as if
it’s always been.
No light gets in,
no weather beyond mist and rain.

Originally, it was an old pioneer’s farm,
its last owner, Cliffy Young,
who won the Sydney to Melbourne marathon,
at 61,
the slowest man in the field,
by simply refusing to sleep
for three days.

 

 

He was this place,
and was of it,
all of it, Cliff.

 

 

As young men, he and his brothers
would race picking spuds.
Five punnets, six, eight, fifteen!

 

Have dinner and go again.

I’d see him as an old man, in his gumboots,
shuffle/running 25kms down the ridge
to get milk and bread,
then up again.

 

 

The ultra marathon made Cliff famous.
A car dealership gave him a ute
with their name on it,
at the time,
even though no-one else lives up here.

The fame faded, the ute,
all that was ever left
was work.

 

 

Was him shuffling up and down
muddy rises.

 

 

The ferns are hard,
“roughies”
Course, solid trunks,
with root balls as heavy as a man.

 

 

They take blood,
sweat,
swearing.

A way of life, surely,
also, to one day be forgotten history.

 

 

I park the ute near
the overgrown skeleton
of Cliff’s old house,
as if rubbing shoulders with him
amongst the blackberries.

 

 

A thick hissing suggests it’s windy.
The top of the canopy
sways and buckles,
as I file my saw,
yet this far down
all remains still.

 

 

“Righto,” I hear myself mumble,
walking over the railway line
that no longer exists,
ploughing away.

 

A branch falls somewhere,
but there are mouths

 

to feed.

 

 

 

 

You can read more poetry from Tommy Mallet HERE.

 

More poetry from Almanac Poetry can be read HERE

 

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