She lived right next to the forest
In a cottage of wattle and daub,
A roof of bark and a floor of dirt
With a whisk of milk, absorbed,
Her man had died of a heart attack
For over a year, he’d gone,
Had left her to fend for herself out there
In the shade of a ghostly gum.
He lay right under a stringy bark,
She’d dug the grave herself,
Had made a cross with her loving hands
Deep planted at his head,
On lonely nights she would sit out there
And whisper him under the stars,
‘Oh Jim, where now are your strong, brown hands,
Where now are your loving arms?’
She didn’t cry, for she couldn’t cry
For her heart had turned to stone,
Her love was buried and six feet down
With crumbling flesh and bone,
Her eyes were hard as the hardest flint,
Her lips a fine white line,
And when the stars came out at night
She would look for the slightest sign.
She looked for a heaven beyond the stars,
She looked for the eyes of God,
She knew that he watched her as she slept,
He watched where her steps had trod,
She prayed for her days to end in peace
And soon, for she was alone,
She carved a notch in the mantelpiece
Each day, since her love had flown.
She bucketed water from the creek
That trickled on past her door,
It once was a raging river bed
But that had been back, before…
Before a neighboring farmer dammed,
And quelled the flowing stream,
Had turned her husband’s protests down
With a sneer, and words obscene.
Her Jim had worked then twice as hard
To irrigate his feed,
The cattle had died in the summer months
On the parched ground of their need,
He worked from the time the sun came up
To the time that the stars came out,
And in the end, collapsed and died
From the toil of a man-made drought.
The farmer up by the dam had said
That he’d take her land for free,
She’d never be able to stay out there
Alone, she would turn and flee,
Then he would double his pasture
And would open the dam to flood,
And let his cattle to roam abroad
By the cottage of wattle and daub.
Now during the long drawn evenings
And deep in the forest’s shade,
She could hear strange noises, threatening,
As they howled across the glade,
She loaded the shotgun Jim had left,
And kept it inside the door,
She’d not be driven from off the land
Where her husband lay, forlorn.
One night a shadowy figure came
Strode out of the darkening wood,
Crossed the creek in the evening mist
In a cape with a long black hood,
It howled and jittered like one possessed
She opened the cottage door,
Then blanched as she saw it light a torch
And the flames begin to roar.
She went to reach for the shotgun then
But a hand caught fast her wrist,
Lifted the gun and pointed it,
She stood with her hand on her breast,
Her heart was pounding, her legs were weak
As she watched the phantom stand,
He shrieked in fear as he saw the gun
In a strong, brown pair of hands.
The blast took one of his legs clean off,
The phantom fell with a scream,
The shotgun dropped to the earthen porch
She thought it a crazy dream,
She turned to look for the strong brown hands
That she knew as well as her own,
But the porch was clear, and she felt no fear
For her husband had come home.
The dam was breached in a minute or so,
The torrent then flooded down,
Washed the remains of the farmer to
The lowlands, where he drowned,
She went out back and buried the gun
With a smile in her eyes, like stars
Looked up to the skies, and saw God’s eyes
And round her, two loving arms!
David Lewis Paget
