To You Gran, Upon Your Eightieth Birthday

 

You were born in a far flung age

When foxtrots and flappers were the rage

 

You're our living link to Gatsby the Great,

A world before TV or Hitler's hate

 

An iris among a daphne and a rose -

With Don and Ray dissenting I suppose

 

I try to picture the farm of you the child

But Cannington's gone concrete, eaten up its wild

 

As a forthright Sunday teacher

At fifteen you KO'd a preacher

 

There were lonely years unable to converse

With interstate Ron as you learned to nurse

 

I see, when I think of you the rector's bride,

Lawson's Drover's Wife, the frontier so wide

 

You were brave and you were tough

Working, birthing, raising in the rough

 

From you came archangel Michael, lily Susan,

King David, Mary the blessed, and seer John

 

Then through the seventies, eighties and noughties came children grand

And now to outdo us, Conor grand and great has come to land

 

You built on a hill and though you can't see so much

Of the lake these days, it's still there, a wild calm touch

 

I know there's sadness these days - the grief

Of burying a child and the nightly sleep of a thief

 

But I hope there's joy too - because we love you

And wish you a happy day and a grand year too