Gold Poem by Les Littleford

Beside the Ovens river
the tourist signs told of
tail race, flumes,
sluice, sluice gates,
offering the merest hint
of the
Reality
of mining.

Along the trail,
decaying evidence
of the backbreaking work,
the mind numbing cold,
the sheer appalling harshness
of this most primitive life.

And from the river,
racing and gurgling below,
came distant echoes,
curses and screams,
raucous arguments,
plaintive cries of women and children.....

and occasionally,
just very occasionally,
the triumphant roar of
GOLD!