“If I Could Put the Clock Back.” [short story by Jack Moses]

[Editor: This is a poem from Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse (1923) by Jack Moses.]

“If I Could Put the Clock Back.”

“If I could put the clock back
a score of years or so

I’d pick up again my old bush tracks
and pals I used to know,

I’d light once more the yarran sticks and
smoke and yarn with mates

Where they plant for good the finger posts
beyond the chip gates.”

Source:
Jack Moses, Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse, Sydney: Austral Publishing Co., 1923, page 8

Editor’s notes:
yarran = a small hardy Australian tree, Acacia homalophylla, useful as a source for fodder, firewood, and fence posts