The Song of the Axeman's Woman


The Song of the Axeman's Woman
	She caught my eye, and held it, and I lingered there a while. The battle flags of "knocking around" flashed broadly in her smile. The gingham blouse, the weathered boots, the denim on her hips, Spelled service in the cattle camps aboard their moaning ships.

	She didn't speak, but watched him, as he loosened up the cogs And ambled to his platform at the "Axemen! Stand to your logs!" She winked a silent "Good Luck Jack" as six men took the line To entrance a crowd converted, and electrify its spine.

	She's drawn a seat on rigs that truck the city to the bush And gladly strained at steerage when the natural course was push. She's followed him through thick and thin, through struggle, strife and squalor. She's followed him when things were grim, when the quid became the dollar.

And in the midst of a screaming night, by the edge of a blood stained bed, She told her straight young axeman that their just born son was dead. And they kept him warm, till the light of dawn, then they set young Jacob free, To the old grey nurse and the long black hearse and the priest and the orderly.

Now the razored edges of the axes ring to the beat of a showman's drum. In the woodchop rink the bright blades sink through the rounds of the tempered gum. At a blazing pace the giant men race. Man and axe as one, As six men battle with a throb and rattle like a burst from a Gatling gun.

	Only inches left, while the deep vees cleft as the big square woodchips fly. She felt Jack's rhythm ebb and flow and she kissed the cup good-bye. in a second split, Jack caught a voice through the sweat blurred gallery, "Come on Jack ... please, come on jack ... just chop for Jake and me."

	The big man's speed, now masterkeyed - like lightning mechanised. As his great log fell to the judge's bell, the crowd hushed mesmerised. Then a mighty cheer erupted and the cryptic victory's key Played "Come on Jack ... please, come on Jack ... just chop for Jake and me."

Straight and true their four boys grew ... you could tell that they were Jack's. They each took the prize of their mother's eyes and each took a racing axe. The heats were gone - young Luke was on to the whirl of the woodchop final, But Luke was lost, as the big men crossed and the crowd was tingling spinal.

With style and science, the Tassie Giants dredged deep for the final dash, As the axes boiled, old Sydney "Royalled", in a spume of salt and slash. I watched as the Axeman's Woman stood, her clear voice pealed through the drums of wood, And a young mind surged, like I knew it would, to "The Song of the Axeman's Woman".

Jack's heart sailed as his eyes regaled, near blind from his scalding tears, In a vivid flash, through the mountain ash, his Luke reeled back the years. The champs now sensed, through the swirling pace, the perfect pitch of the teenage ace. The giants were stunned by the youth. Outgunned! And the chant for his victory Said, "Come on Luke ... please, come on Luke ... For Jake and the boys and me."
© Robert Raftery, PictureWriter