DAD’S BARBECUE
My father had a bullock
I don’t know where he found it
The council man came by one day
And said he must impound it
Now Dad said that it can’t be done
Because he’d asked a few
Of his friends and relatives
To a barbecue
The bull heard this,and with a roar
He headed for the hills
He had no plans for barbecues
And salad for the frills
So dad and all the family
And some of his good friends
Had barbecue of vegetables
And other odds and ends
“Twas the night before Christmas.
No cards have been sent.
No presents are wrapped,
there’s no tree to augment.
No air tickets purchased
to family events.
If we choose to “go green”
well that’s what is meant.
Instead, give to charity,
make our own jam
to give to the family
rather than ham.
Avoid plastic tinsel.
As home decorator
only use hand-made
from wool, wood or paper.
The night before Christmas
we chose to go green
and help to keep Earth’s
environment clean.
inspired by the New Scientist’s article on how to HAVE A GREEN CHRISTMAS
1942
They’d hoped he’d be back for Christmas –
the lights shining down on him, the tree
somehow shielding off the horror. A break.
The family hadn’t seen him as a soldier,
in his uniform, among harvested paddocks,
the dried stubble that pricked your legs.
Arriving home, he said Merry Christmas,
hugged people and slapped them on the back.
Wandered about the place, eyes crinkled
with strain, lines dug
into his forehead. So young, he seemed
to be either laughing or very sad
as though, in between,
there was nothing.
(From Tigers on the Silk Road, Arc Publications, 2000)
In Australia, when it’s Christmas hot,
A farmer’s keen for a little drop
of rain from heaven, upon his roof,
of Santa’s gifts, he looks for proof
Then drumming starts above; he hears
his wife call out “It’s rain dear!”
Walter de Jong
Kookaburra sits
On a clothes line tall,
Carefully surveying
The urban sprawl.
Spying a movement
In the grass,
He swoops down swiftly.
Dinner at last!
Won’t you laugh kookaburra,
Laugh for me?
Your life is so much harder
Than it used to be.
My Mother’s Horse-shoe Ring
(after Grace Nichols)
Sometimes when I see it
on my index finger
I am reassured,
rub its ruby stone, her gift.
I need this small reminder
of her, its lucky charm
that catches me
like an itinerant fire
chipped from the sun.
©Katherine Gallagher
Published in Acres of Light Arc Publications, 2016)
Colour (non)sense
Polar bears are white
so they blend with the view.
Kangaroos are brown
so they blend in too.
But my new pyjamas —
bought in the Bahamas —
are purple, orange and blue
Australian Children’s Poetry 