Ken's Poetry

The Honourable Roddy

Ross

The man in the Mounty hat
sitting on a rock
boots in the water
shuffling gravel in a pan
looked up at the sun
as I plunged down the scree,
his eyes flecked with gold.

Over the road
down an incredible hole
machines gouged the ground
their mission the same.

Canadian of course
living in history and hope,
showed me his phial
half filled with flakes.
We had a night in Queenstown
at the ‘Horizontal Bungee’
(don’t ask!)
had pizza,
too much beer.

Back there in Ross
in 1903
Tom Scott
picked up a nugget
the size of his hand
weighing 6 pounds.

We didn’t know that then:
but all the way round
that beautiful country
our eyes were always shifty
for the glint of gold.

NOTE the nugget was called the ‘Honourable Roddy’