Redgum Another Country
Foundryman and rigger, served my craft with skill and pride
Furnaces barked at the sun, and welders sparked the night
Merchantmen and frigates, we moulded ribs and shaped the keels
We forget a nation's fleets from white-hot rivers of tungsten steel
The shipyards lying idle now, and rust flakes off the cranes
Seagulls echo in the empty docks, but a silent power remains
A cold north wind tugs at my coat as I walk these oily sands
There's a life on a punch card clock, and dust upon my hands
My brother played thе ponies, a breaker by his tradе
Sailed for Cairo in '41, Third Light Horse Brigade
Rode the winds of fortune, cast his life in a two-up game
I carry his coins, they were in his hat, from Tobruk to El Alamein
There's dust upon his photograph, a young face bold and tanned
He told me “Always judge the odds that sacrifice demands”
His bones lie out at Sandgate, where the waste creeks meet the sea
There's gutter cars and salvage yards where brumbies once ran free
The past is another country, the maps are torn and frayed
Steel is cast for Wall Street now, and ships are foreign made
The boys grow lean and restless, see the anger in their eyes
I watch from my veranda, see the gulf grow deep and wide
Politicians crow with promises, in a year it's blood from stone
This dusty town grows sad and weary, still I call it home
There's an old man combing memories, and shells upon a beach
In his shadow walks a dreamer, just beyond his reach
