Old Travelling Shearer

He has done his travelling and the seeds of his genes he has sown
Yet his children to him strangers and to them he is not known
In an old people's home in his early nineties his travelling days are in the past
All he has now are his memories and time on him is ticking fast

He walks with a cane's assistance time it has become his foe
He is not the man that he was way back in the long ago
Worn out from years of living he has had a better day
Time is everybody's master youth with anyone does not stay

All he has left are the memories of his sweaty days in many a hot shearing shed
Most of the shearers he shore with by now would be of the dead
So many sheds he has shorn in one who earned his every pay
In the life of the travelling shearer many a hard working day

Many the hours he spent drinking in many a country town
Many the women he slept with but with none he could settle down
Other shearers told him he was a father he may now be a great grand dad
He looks so fragile and time worn far better days he has had

Despite his years of travel and hard work and hard drinking in his nineties he is alive
Few like him to such an age manage to survive
And though his better days are in the long gone
With his battle of survival in life he goes on.