I wonder who lived here,
I wonder where they went?
Did they make a living,
or were their hopes all spent?
Did they dream of copper,
digging riches from the ground?
They haven’t been forgotten
for there’s history all around.
Perhaps at night their ghosts
still venture out to roam,
stepping lightly through the gloom
to once again come home.
The old Williams cottage, Blinman, South Australia. Photo by Ginette Pestana
When did we start
having so much stuff?
To go without
would be cold and tough.
Two-and-a-half
million years ago
a few stone tools
was all we could show.
Three hundred thousand
years before now
we’d arrows and spears
and fire knowhow.
By seventy thousand
an Ice Age had stressed
those poor chilly humans
and made them get dressed!
Image from Pixabay
Imagine living here
with all those stairs to climb,
and every room you enter
takes you back in time.
Everywhere you wander,
every corner you explore,
could there be a ghost or two
behind a secret door?
Teacher’s note: Martindale Hall, Mintaro, South Australia, famously appeared in the movie Picnic at Hanging Rock. Completed in 1880 with 32 rooms, and once the home of the Mortlock family, this Georgian mansion is now open to the public six days a week.
Australian Children’s Poetry 