Finding Gold Poem by Douglas Scotney

At the beach
at the bottom
of a very long hill,
Carrickalinga, not Myponga,
though that's a long drop as well,
I saw I'd left my walking-stick called Number One
at the damn dam look-out
at the top.

I wasn't going back to get it.

DBD found me a rickety stick in a near-by bush.

We wondered, 'Who'd call this beach No.1,
with neither shade nor shop? '

We went to two towns to buy a stick,
Normanville 'n Yankalilla.

The first two shops had none.

'There's sure to be one
at the Op Shop called Top',
said one,
but not being quite so bold,
on account of the dry old stick from the bush,
I went into the closer Bottom,
and came out with the stick
this rhyme suggests now I call Gold.

Next day,
heading back
a different way,
I saw a sign 'To The Reservoir'.
I said, 'Let's take that track;
people don't like to steal a stick.
I've had many successful goings-back.'

If I had a penchant
my brother for kissing,
that's what I would have done:
there, high on the frame of a sign that was missing
someone had hung Number One.