|
zondrae
|
 |
« on: January 17, 2007, 12:54:53 AM » |
|
As I mentioned to Manfred yesterday I am posting this one I wrote about my Dad.
Last year The National Folk Festival had as its theme - Queensland, the workers and Italians. I wrote this because, not only did it encompass all three of the themes but it gave me the chance to pay tribute to a man who had very little reward or recognition durng his life. My mother was the typical red head. I will not talk about her because that gives her back the control that she forced on everyone who came into her circle.
I was just able to get through reading this at the National without braking down.
The Immigrant
© Zondrae King (09/05) Corrimal NSW
His name was Giovanni and in English that is John.
He was a quiet and gentle man and though he had a lack
of trade and of diploma it never held him back.
His name was Giovanni, but the Aussies called him Jack.
Born north-east of Como, in a small Italian town
simply called La Valtellina. There he spent his childhood days
where Alps cross into Switzerland and flocks in summer graze.
Walnuts brought in cash and they grew vegetables and maze.
The youngest of the family, he had to leave the farm
for it was small and could not feed an ever growing clan.
The priesthood or migration was his family’s only plan.
When he headed for Australia he was hardly yet a man.
He met another local lad, the day they left their home,
They’d never seen the sea before and neither one could swim
But each found comfort in someone who thought and spoke like him.
They formed a life long friendship as the sight of home grew dim.
To Queensland first they sent him, blazing sun and burning cane.
Other migrants in the fields became the friends for which he yearned.
He didn’t speak much English but with eagerness he learned,
and every month he’d send back home some money that he earned.
He was slightly built and wiry, he was just your average man
His eyes were bright and hazel. His hair was thick and black.
He laboured in the cane fields, blistered hands and aching back.
His name was Giovanni, but the Aussies called him Jack.
At cuttings end he’d head to town for rest and recreation.
A private man, not one for show, he led a simple life.
He waited long and patiently for fate to bring his wife
and finally at thirty four he entered married life.
He saw more of the country than most Aussies of the time
Innesfail and Ingham, Tully in the sugar fields he stayed.
When machines took on his farming work, a change had to be made.
Then he learned to work in laundries pressing trousers for a trade.
When war time came he was interned, though he’d done nothing wrong.
He spent months behind the fences of barbed wire, poorly hung.
At night while lying prone upon a stretcher, roughly sprung
he used the time to study hard his newly chosen tongue.
Released at last in ’45 with wife he headed south.
Six graves among the fields marked hard work, hunger and stress
the babies born too soon and still, felt no mothers caress.
She never bore a son for him, with daughters fate would bless.
When ever he was out of doors he always wore a hat
even with his faded navy singlet, working out the back.
When something really pleased him he’d say “It’s not too black”.
His name was Giovanni, and his neighbours called him Jack
Now one daughter was chosen but the other was their own.
One was dark and beautiful the other fair and loud
both completely different, but of both equally proud.
To teach them of his heritage and culture he had vowed.
No son to learn beside him but the younger daughter chose
to pass the hoe and plant the seeds and sometimes hunt out snails.
She handed him the hammer, he sent her to fetch nails.
She listened to him talk of ‘home’ and memorized the tales.
He raised his daughters wisely, though they never felt his hand.
You would seldom hear him argue, and his patience never short.
Then there came a new direction, on the wharves of Kembla Port.
Better money and conditions and no more dirty clothes to sort.
Now wharfies have traditions, for each new man a new nickname,
and Jack of cause was “Ripper”, following historic trend.
He found shifts suited nicely for it gave him time to spend
on building a new house to bring his roaming to an end.
When friends came round on weekends they would have a drink or two
The old familiar songs from home his countrymen would sing
It seems that each one knew his part, which harmony to bring
They stayed ‘til way past midnight and would make the rafters ring.
Forced off the wharves at 65, the law made him retire.
Still fit, he joined the hospital, working the parking zone.
He smoked Champion tobacco, he always rolled his own.
He hated crowds and conflict and didn’t like the phone.
A child among the mountains attending to the goats
A youth, exiled from his home land to face the world unskilled.
A man with just his hands, his families every need he filled
A husband, father, nonno – patient rock on which to build.
His name was Giovanni in Australia he was Jack
An honest man, achieving here far more than others had.
To his life there’s no tribute, which I think is rather sad.
His name was Giovanni, - but I just called him Dad.
|
