To a hardy breed of people he surely does belong <br />The man from the high woodland of the pied currawong <br />For many years a shearer one of no fixed abode <br />In his ute through the outback he has travelled on many a road <br />Single in his early forties he has yet to take a wife <br />Though he is not short of women plenty of them in his life <br />Says he has not fathered children not that he knows of anyway <br />In every Bushtown he has a woman though in every town his is a brief stay <br />From the hill of the pied currawong and the tall mountain ash trees <br />That sough and wave their branches in the freshening high country breeze <br />Yet he likes the wide brown outback and though the shearer never draws easy pay <br />He will be shearing in the shearing sheds till he grows old and gray <br />In the Bushtown pubs at the weekend there is women, laughter, beer and song <br />To the travelling life of the outback shearer he is one who does belong.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-outback-shearer/
