© Noel Stallard

When poets write they draw upon events they’ve seen or heard
and couch these life experiences in rhythmic, rhyming word.
They may depict some country dance or leafy swimming pool
some blacksmith or some drover or perhaps an outback school.
And while the poet’s details seems unique to them in time
the detail for their readers may recall a paradigm
of similar experiences their readers wouldn’t find
unless the poet’s catalyst recalled them to the mind.

The poet’s gentle rain of words on reader’s dormant past
can germinate rich memories the reader had outcast;
but now, thanks to the poet, the reader can relive
their own rich episodes of life that time and place would give.
Of dances in the Soldiers’Hall with sawdust on the floor,
when girls set up right round the walls and boys stood at the door.
The river was the swimming pool and floods exciting things
with days to jump off railway bridge or dive off homemade swings.

The poet doesn’t know the reader’s mem’ry treasure chest
but gifts to him the key in words that will unlock this nest
of precious memorabilia stored deep in keepsake’s cave
and once again the reader can relive events time gave.
So, thank you poets for your gift that triggers our recall
or people and events that’s been important to us all.