The Ring & the Bottle

The Ring & the Bottle

A Poem by David Lewis Paget

They’d sat beneath the sweltering sun

For an hour, or maybe two,

Lost somewhere on the Birdsville Track

They didn’t know what to do.

‘Stay with the car,’ said Derek Beech,

‘They’ll come and find us soon.’

‘Better we walk,’ said Colleen Scott,

‘Til we find that last lagoon.’

 

They glared and bickered, and pursed their lips,

The battlelines were drawn,

He to stay with the crippled car,

She to go wandering on.

‘The temperature’s hitting fifty C

If you go, you won’t survive.’

‘Rather than dehydrate out here,

I want to get out alive!’

 

They’d driven through Cooper’s Crossing

As the day was becoming dark,

He had been keen for pushing on

Though she had wanted to park.

The driver had the advantage, so

Their lights cut into the night,

In through the gibber country, where

The tracks crossed, left and right.

 

They’d entered the Stony Desert when

The first of the tyres blew,

They’d only taken a single spare,

She said, ‘That’s down to you!’

It took an hour to change it

Trying to jack the car in the sand,

The jack would sink in the bulldust mix

So she had to lend a hand.

 

By morning they were completely lost

And the radiator boiled,

The lights had flashed all over the dash

And the motor suddenly stalled.

‘I can’t believe that we’re stuck out here,’

She’d wailed, and punched his arm,

‘Why did I ever listen to you?

I should have stayed on the farm.’

 

‘Maybe you should,’ said Derek Beech,

His temper beginning to show,

‘You’re not much good at the outback life,

Go back to your Auntie Flo!’

‘That’s it,’ she said, and she pulled the ring

He’d given her days before,

Flung it down in his lap, and watched

It bounce to the desert floor.

 

She took a bottle of water, then

Stomped off the way that they came,

‘If you get lost you will die out there

With only yourself to blame!’

She took a short cut back to the track

They’d turned off, hours before,

And gradually drank the water, though

She knew that she needed more.

 

The endless dry and barren land

Had not seen rain for years,

The track wiped out by the drifting sand,

Colleen was soon in tears,

She stopped beneath a coolibah tree

Surviving on its own,

And rested there in the paltry shade

In the land of the great unknown.

 

While Derek sat in an agony

Of doubts, to cloud his mind,

Should he have gone along with her,

Or should he have stayed behind?

Some hours had passed before he rose

To place the ring on the car,

Along with a note, ‘I love you, girl,

But I don’t know where you are.’

 

He started to walk the way she’d gone,

The sun, it was going down,

He knew that hope was a step too far

As he walked along, and frowned,

If only he’d thought to call her name

Snapped out of his mute dismay,

He might have met her along the track,

Coming the other way.

 

They were only a hundred yards apart

When they passed like ships in the night,

And she had stumbled back to the car

When the sun put gloom to flight,

She found the note and she found the ring

And she placed it back on her hand,

Then sank beside their wreck of a car

And was covered by drifting sand.

 

While he was found, propped up by the tree

In the glare of the blazing sun,

His final thought of the way they’d fought

That never could be undone.

But love was there in the desert air

As she lay, the ring on her hand,

While he clung on to the bottle, she’d

Flung empty, down on the sand.

 

David Lewis Paget

© 2013 David Lewis Paget


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Featured Review

Another truly wonderful write, David.. so tragic and sad. I can only imagine what my life might have been like if I had stayed put with some of my situations.. good or bad.. did I make the right choices. You've given me a lot to ponder with this piece.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.




Reviews

Haste makes waste; and in this case, it laid waste to two lives. What a shame! This is another wonderfully told story with human frailties and ego on display.

Posted 10 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Another truly wonderful write, David.. so tragic and sad. I can only imagine what my life might have been like if I had stayed put with some of my situations.. good or bad.. did I make the right choices. You've given me a lot to ponder with this piece.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

An Outback Romeo and Juliet. Tragic but touching. The irony that they both passed in the night wasn't lost on me either. Great metaphors to life.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

OH man this one put a lump in my throat. How often do we become imperious, capricious and wreck something precious? Wonderful lesson in this, David.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Another good one, David! The tragedy spills over this piece. I am going to kiss my husband as soon as he gets in. We fought over a trivial thing last night. The regret is bitter on my tongue. Angi~

Posted 11 Years Ago


Romeo and Juliet....you and Shakespeare. This is a tremendous read. Love is nothing if not hard fought.

Posted 11 Years Ago


Another good story, David! So romantic, yet so tragic!

Posted 11 Years Ago


Very well done. So reminds me of how frail love and humanity are. The blistering heat of Australia may as well be the surface of the sun. I don't think it is for the average to live there.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

this is so tragically romantic and at the same time delightfully macabre...it actually reminds me of something you would have seen on "the alfred hitchcock hour" back in the 50's or 60's on tv. of course, your writing style has left clearly your unique mark and this is a resonant and engaging write indeed. well done, old chap!

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Beautiful,David, very beautiful!! I don't have any words to describe the beauty of this poem.I am amazed at the power of your pen

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.


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336 Views
10 Reviews
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Added on July 15, 2013
Last Updated on July 15, 2013
Tags: Birdsville, Stony Desert, motor, barren

Author

David Lewis Paget
David Lewis Paget

Moonta, South Australia, Australia



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