Papa Country

The blue mudstone

Slippery as glass

Defines these lands

This is papa country

The valleys are bogs

Dangerous for heavy stock

The ridges are dry and hot

Until it rains

Which it does often

The vegetation clings to the hills

And the hills cling

To the skeletons of the earth

And the rain washes away profit

And old hope

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

A local & an urbanite

A city man turned boy

Out in these parts

We come here to shoot guns

Mainly at goats

But we won't complain

If our bullets hit

Pig or deer

I'm good I'm told

My ego is stroked

As the smell of fuel

Washes up the valley

From the wastelands below

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

Goats tumble as shells fall

And adrenaline rises

This is our "conservation project"

I'm not so sure

Maybe that's just a cover

For animal brain

As we choose

Who lives and who dies

I still see the kid who ran away

As I lined her up

And before I pulled the trigger

She dropped over the rise

Alone but not dead, yet

I still hear the tortured bleat

Of the billy that was not quite dead

Pain and fear. Pain and fear

"Leave him.The pigs will get him soon enough."

I'm not sure we ever agreed on exactly what "soon enough" was

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

My boots caked in blue mud

I wish I had brought more water

As the sun beats me down

I'm disappointed I didn't see the deer

I was too busy blasting stinkies

If I had seen it hop

I would have shot it

Resigned to my fate as much as he was

The brown thicket obscures what lies beneath

In a clearing we see five tiny piglets

Their Mum: in a belly, a freezer or dog tucker

They catch our scent and panic

We leave them to fatten up

I look the nanny in her eyes

A bullet through her flank

Immobile but wriggling

I lift her neck and saw at her throat

It's not easy like the movies

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

We impose and impost

Tax men

Taking lives and leaving bodies

Slow cooked goat curry

We harvest back legs

From kids and nannies

As the eyes of the billys glaze over

They no longer see what has become

The ridges are dry

And the valleys are bogs

The blue mudstone

Defines these lands

This is papa country