2012-12-25
One
Drover’s Christmas
By
Bruce Prewer
The
drovers were on a stock route
watching
their herds by night,
out
of the east came some min min*
that
spooked the men with light.
They
seemed to sing with light,
they
seemed to sing in the darkness
a
music both sour and sweet,
it
entered the soul with catharsis,
the
drover’s boy danced to the beat.
One
min min beckoned the boss man,
so
he left the herd to the rest,
the
min min danced on before him
like
a lost soul re-possessed.
They
came at last to Menindee
near
a stable behind the pub,
the
drover slowly dismounted
and
tied his horse to a shrub.
He
stood and waited for guidance,
though
his throat cried out for a beer,
the
min min stopped at a door
and
the drover swallowed his fear.
The
door was half off its hinges,
but
he dragged it open wide,
he
saw a weary young woman
with
a new born baby that cried.
It
was nothing like he had expected,
he
did something he hadn’t done for years.
he
fell down on his knees in that stable
and
shed unaccustomed tears.
Were
they tears of joy or sorrow?
he
never did know for sure,
but
he did dare take a new stock route
no
drover had travelled before.
From
the Poems for Pilgrims collection,
2006.
*Note:
min min are the spirit lights of the
forests and deserts in the oral traditions of the original Australians, the
Aboriginal Peoples who have been custodians of the Land for over sixty thousand
years.
Bruce
Prewer is an Australian Uniting Church minister who has served most of his life
in remote areas of the country. He has been and continues as pastor to
indigenous and non-indigenous exploring the mystery of the Incarnation and
attempting to inculturate it by using story, legends, far-fetched tales,
rituals, signs and symbols native to both groups.