Foolscap Tombstones - Slim Dusty

With faded ink brandings and covered in dust

Forgotten up there on the shelf out of view

All these old station journals and chequebooks and such

Naming the pound a week people who I knew

The names of old ringers, fencers, and breakers

Camp cooks and drovers and a housemaid or two

Firin' old memories these old station journals

Shrouding the names of bush people I knew

Names of hard toilers and boozers and brawlers

One or two names of good stockmen I knew

Indelibly etched in these old station ledgers

Abandoned up here, choked in dust out of view

Copies of records required by head office

Monthly reports from a man held in trust

Fragile old entries on musty old foolscap

Home for red hornets and red Cooper dust

Close to my hand lies a volume of history

Listing some names long forgotten, deceased

Dead though they might be, today they come back to me reading these pages so

dust marked and creased

And who in head office devalues this history with which these old records are

so richly filled

How many shareholders honor the memory of the pound a week stockmen a station

colt killed

The bush bred young housemaid, where has she wondered

And where is the scribe who composed these reports

And where is the dogger, the drover, the blacksmith

And others who join a parade in my thoughts

Yes, these old station records all covered in red dust

Vanished from sight here, neglected alone

You are fragile yet stronger than any flowery epithets man ever chiseled on

marble headstone

So I’ll dust you and mend you and care for you now

And place you out there at the front in full view

And every so often I’ll come by and squander some time with these pound a week

people and you