Old Tom The Bushman Poem by Francis Duggan

Old Tom The Bushman



Old Tom the bushman is not well educated still you might say he is nobody's fool
And he says he has learnt more from nature far more than he has ever learnt in school
As a thirteen year old his education ended When he left Primary school in forty two
When only children of wealthy parents went to college and war was raging and jobs only few.

In his best years old Tom the bushman was a shearer and with hand shears he often shore one hundred sheep a day
And from the mid fifties to the early nineties he earnt his living in the hardest way
He's far too old now for to be a shearer one well could say
his better days he has seen
His hair is gray and he has a beer pot belly he once was brown haired hardy, fit and lean.

Still he has such a great knowledge of nature and though no
one person of nature know every thing
His knowledge is away above the average he can name the bird
just by the song he sing
The tiny bird so visually elusive that sings hidden on the lillypilly tree
Old Tom will tell you he's the pardalote his song proof of the bird you cannot see.

He is not one who is well educated and he cannot boast of a college degree
But of Mother Nature and her many secrets there's few if any
know as much as he
He knows every wild creature that lives around him and as a
naturalist his reputation grow
And though there is not one who knows everything on nature
so much about nature old Tom seems to know.

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