1723. Roadside poppies

Certainly one couldn’t be too critical of the way the local Regional Council spent money to improve the lot of its residents. The neatness of back-country rural roads and facilities was indeed something to be proud of.

Julia’s little house in the hinterland was next to a road. It didn’t matter greatly because only half a dozen or so vehicles would pass by each day. On the opposite side of the road was a bank that had a few self-grown ferns and various weeds. Julia set out to make it a picture!

Her garden poppies had flowered profusely and there were literally hundreds of seed pods with thousands of tiny poppy seeds. She would collect them and scatter them onto the bank. When next spring came around there would be a feast of bright red poppies. One would hope that the sudden beauty of such a vision wouldn’t distract a vehicle driver and cause an accident!

Spring arrived! And indeed there were thousands of poppy plants all in bud. It was going to be a picture! A marvel! A wonder!

That was when the local Regional Council came along and sprayed the weeds.

1312. A rustic school

It was a sad day for the little country school. After two hundred and seventy-one years it was closing. It had always been a single teacher school, with the number of pupils ranging from twelve to twenty-seven. The twelve to twenty-seven pupils would in future be bused to and from another school three quarters of an hour away.

The children were all from local farming families. All former pupils seem to have lived good and profitable lives. All seemed to have got a good basis of education. Some, usually the oldest boy although these days perhaps the oldest girl instead, went into farming. Some former pupils had excelled beyond all expectations. One was a famous nuclear physicist. Another was a research scientist for the cure of tropical diseases.

It was a happy school, and it was the centre of the local community. If the pupils put on a concert, the whole district attended, even if they had no children at the school.

It was surprising that the school was closing. More and more couples with children were moving into the area; townspeople who had bought several acres for their lifestyle dream: two alpacas and a peacock. Or a guinea fowl with piglets. Anyway, one of these lifestylers to come into the area was Ms Claudette Armstrong. She was the one responsible for getting the school closed. She had written to the Minister of Education.

Mr Higgins, the sole teacher, had to be removed. “I distinctly heard him use the word “bugger” within hearing distance of a pupil,” wrote Ms Armstrong.

“Bugger me if I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my whole life. Not even when I went through university,” said Farmer Jack. “She should bugger off back to town from whence she came.”

“I’ll be buggered if I don’t agree with you, Jack,” chimed Mrs Nora Elworthy.

Their protests went for naught. Mr Higgins was removed. The school closed.

“Now we might see the local children get a proper education,” declared a triumphant Ms Armstrong. “For too long pupils in rural schools have been disadvantaged.”

Poem 28: Mary Ann – Harry

– an eclogue

Having settled on creating an Eclogue, as my chosen poetic form for this month, I perused Virgil’s famous “Eclogues” (translated of course) to get some inspiration. I had great difficulty in comprehending them, even after reading the footnotes numerous times. This Eclogue is a response to, and an admission of, my own inadequacy.

Mary Ann (a town girl):
Harry, you must go and milk all the cows that are lowing o’er there.

Harry (a shepherd):
No, my dear Mary Ann, I really cannot be bothered today.
It is idyllic so, lying here with you this late afternoon,
cool in the shade of a sycamore tree in the field.

Mary Ann:
Oh, but the cows have udders near bursting with cream.
Calves have been taken away from them so that they need to be milked;
I mean the cows not the calves. I hear them bleat.

Harry:
Moo.

Mary Ann:
Moo?

Harry:
It’s like the cow and the bull, and the ram and the ewe, and the white
duck and the drake, and the hind and the stag, and the pigs;
let us make love in this bucolic place with the sky all above.

Mary Ann:
Oh, but I have soon to catch the last train back to town where I live,
leaving behind all this wonderful pastoral countryside bliss
in exchange for exhaust fumes and tooting of horns at the traffic lights.
This is no time for such hanky-panky and for you to toot
toot your horn as well. Toot toot.

Harry:
Toot toot.

Mary Ann:
Too-da-loo. I go!

Harry:
See how the smoke from the cottage afar curls in the sky.
Evening begins to set; husbands and wives light their fires for warmth,
Cosy in domestic love. See how the shadows stretch long in the meadows.

Mary Ann:
Quick! I must leave for the train that will take me away from the farm.

Harry:
Oh well, I’d better go milk all the cows that need milking then.
Farewell, my lovely dear Mary Ann. May you enjoy the long trip
back to the town where you dwell.
But will you marry me?

Mary Ann:
NO! But my heart will be left behind in this most rustic of settings,
here with the lowing of herds winding slowly in line o’er the lea.

Harry:
You already said that.

Mary Ann:
And there are olive groves and vineyards.

Harry:
Where?

Mary Ann:
There are also peaches

Harry:
and cream.

They kiss. Mary Ann misses her train.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.