Poem - In The Country By Lee-Anne Bright

In The Country

Home is where your heart is

Or so people keep telling me.

When I look into my heart

I can easily see

That my heart is in the country

The bush, the scrub

Whatever it maybe.

 I love the station life

The people who belong to it

The barking dogs

The utes and boots

And scruffy old hats

That’s the place where I’ll be

Riding on the horses

Or in a beaten up old ute

Out on a water run

Fixing fences and mending tanks

Doing the same things they did

When this life first begun.

Working at the dam

When the neighbours come around

Leaning on the fence

Or squatting on the ground

Talking of the prices

And how far they are down

This is the life I want to lead

Right in the heart

Of this unique land

That’s where I’ll be

Kelpie at my side

In the scrub, in the bush

In the country.

                                                  

By Lee-Anne Bright

February 1998

Poem: No Other Way by Lee-Anne

Governessing is made of moments, good, bad and funny. I don’t think I’d change each experience for the world. I penned this while sitting in the Arkaroola schoolroom (2000) waiting for the kids to return. While enjoying my moments of peace.

No Other Way

On the weekends

I run a little room

Organised and neat

Tidy as can be

Everything has a place

And everything in its place

That's what I say

But that goes out the window

8.30 to 3.30 every weekday

This is the time

My tidy little room goes

From organised and neat

To a tidy little heap

For 5 days it's

'Could you pickup this please'

'Could you put that away'

If not those words

Then similar anyway

Here they come running    

From a half an hours play

Pulling things apart

Causing havoc to my dismay

On the weekends

I run a little room

Organised and neat

Tidy as can be

And I wouldn't want it any other way.

(Well not often)

By Lee-Anne Bright

                                                             

Poem: The Window

I penned this at South Gap in my first year of governessing. It was written on 13 of August 1997. The year 3 schoolwork had a fantastic unit on poetry, which inspired me to start writing again. What a great lifestyle governessing is, it allows you to follow all your dreams.
 

The Window

You wake up in the morning,

What a great looking day

Out the window the sun shines away.

Getting up and having breakfast

Hoping for delight not dismay

For out the window the sun shines away.

Into the schoolroom we go

Starting a new day

Looking out the window the sun shines away.

Finally reached smoko

She’s trying her best

Still out the window the sun shines away

Back into the schoolroom

Back to the fray

Through the window the sun shines away.

Lunchtime has arrived

I’m feeling frazzled and dazed

Yet out the window the sun shines away.

Afternoon filled with Art and science

Developmental play

And out the window the sun shines away.

School is out at last

She’ll get a star

As we look out the window the sun shines away.

The rest or the day is mine at last

Peace and sunshine

Then I look out the window and see rain coming this way.

By Lee-Anne Bright

                                 

Poetry: Cheers Over

Assembly

Is anybody there, over?

I can’t hear the studio.

Are there any messages from the field?

Moolooloo, over

Go ahead Moolooloo

Can I please have a radio check?

We hear you loud and clear

Can you please repeat that Miss..

Can someone relay that?

CHEERS OVER


By Isabella C. and Lee-Anne Bright (Port Augusta SOTA Governess between 1997 and 2003)


Written at Moolooloo for Issy’s End of the Radio project, 2003.