For Clive James: 1939 - 2015... Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

ASHES AND BLACK STUMPS

I liked your Maple poem Jamesie
About you slowly karking in Cambridge -
Sentimental savvy
In part but the occasion gives it edge
And its light reflects the Aussie adage

That we are a Rooster one day
And next a bloody feather duster
Bugger as they say
When the whips crack at the last muster
Hide as dry as a dead dingo’s donga

But you are a hard case bastard
And a battler who’s best with a wry smile
Always big hearted -
Still pitching up a 'she's right' ocker style
That makes us nod laconically the while.

S'truth mate I have to ask before you wane
Why a bloody maple tree and not a gum
And bricked backyards in English rain
Rather than the bronze and ochre sun
Receding ever west now day is done?

But home your flecks of ash and bone will warm
Scattered to the tide on Sydney-side
Where the mullet and the king-fish swarm
To celebrate that you have died
And end up battered dipped and fried.