So many of them
I call my friends:
Those I love.

They live in a land
I proudly call home.
A land I never left,
But in body.
As much a part of me,
This wide brown land,
As are the friends
That make up my being.

Those from my youth,
From my childhood;
Those whom I love,
I miss;
Many, many –
Too many times, for
Their presence
I have wished.

But their presence here
Away from that land
Could not be the same:
I left of my own accord,
And will return to the
Land of my home.
I shall return to that part
Of my life,
(As often in memory I go)
To my friends,
And the heart
(My home).

That land is my friend too.
How many times have I wandered
Its shores,
Pondering?
Walked Solitary, just me
And the trails
Over land
Unadulterated by man.

And I know and I fear,
That man shall be there
In the places my solitude
Would reign:
The lonely seashores,
The lakes and the moors,
And the mountains
The bush and the streams.
The deserts, the caves,
The beaches, the waves,
The sands, the dunes,
And the fields;
The plains, and
The trees,
The roos, and wallabies;
And the birds,
The snakes and the lizards.
And my friend the spider,
And the friendly blue skies
And the rains and the storms
And the seasons.
The cold and the hot,
The laugh, good and long,
Of a kookaburra, alone in the trees.
I remember too well,
The bush tracks and trails,
The harbours, the sails,
The dolphins, jellyfish,
And the sharks.
But what’s remembered
And cherished most,
And forever
Follows wherever I go,
Is the laughter, the
Love and the cheer,
And the jokes, and the play,
And the bored lost days,
And the friends
That I don’t have here.