Sounds of Then (This is Australia)

(M.Callaghan)

I think I hear the sounds of then,

And people talking,

The scenes recalled, by minute movement,

And songs they fall, from the backing tape.

That certain texture,that certain smell,

To lie in sweat, on familiar sheets,

In brick veneer on financed beds.

In a room, of silent hardiflex

That certain texture, that certain smell,

Brings home the heavy days,

Brings home the the night time swell,

Out on the patio we’d sit,

And the humidity we’d breathe,

We’d watch the lightning crack over canefields

Laugh and think, this is Australia.

The block is awkward - it faces west,

With long diagonals, sloping too.

And in the distance, through the heat haze,

In convoys of silence the cattle graze.

That certain texture, that certain beat,

Brings forth the night time heat.

Out on the patio we’d sit,

And the humidity we’d breathe,

We’d watch the lightning crack over canefields

Laugh and think that this is Australia.

To lie in sweat, on familiar sheets,

In brick veneer on financed beds.

In a room of silent hardiflex

That certain texture, that certain smell,

Brings forth the heavy days,

Brings forth the night time sweat

Out on the patio we’d sit,

And the humidity we’d breathe,

We’d watch the lightning crack over canefields

Laugh and think, this is Australia.

This is Australia etc..