Vanity By the Wayside

I’ve often mentioned Hilly in the poems that I have written, and I’ve often said that Hilly with a brewer’s surely smitten, so you’re libel now to see him in the state that I call ‘blotto’ but today he can afford it because he recently won lotto. But Hilly’s really not that stupid that he wasted all on beer. He bought himself some acres in the bush where at the rear, Hilly dug a gaping hole to make some recreation space, meant to be a quiet retreat with nature all around the place. Hilly told me looking over water seems to calm more than the land, especially sitting in a deck chair with a beer stuck in your hand. But of course this time is wasted so to get an extra prod, you have to add another interest, and that becomes a fishing rod. We planted gums out in the paddock, and on the bank some creepers grew. Filled up the hole with water and then we built a cabin too. Then from the Bunyip and the Rysons little blackfish bless their soul, were travelling in esky’s and ending up in Hilly’s water hole. We’d often go there camping and improve the dam surround, by making sure the under-story’s not a snake infested ground. And at times we’d throw the rods in just to see the fish progress, but we’re catching carp and eels of which we couldn’t care a less. How they ever got into the dam became a mystery to us pair. Perhaps someone playing tricks had put the flamin’ carp in there. And then one summer evening there’s a hint we may be right, for we heard some human voices who were shouting with delight. Hilly first walked on the bank and I followed him soon after, but the sight of us had soon destroyed the gleeful happy laughter, for six young women in the dam, who some might say are rude; with their clothes up on the bank and them swimming in the nude. Of course the show that they put on didn’t last for very long. They were screaming out “You perverts!” But we’d done nothing wrong. So we stood and watched them panic where it’s not hard to believe them saying ‘they’ll stay in the water ‘til the pair of us did leave’. I sort of felt embarrassed with their company at the dam, where Hilly took advantage of the ladies in their naked jam. He said “You can swim there all day long” then gave his cheeky smile, “You see the only reason we are here - is to feed the crocodile!”