The Undertaker Poem by David Lewis Paget

Coopers Creek where the cattle cross
Is a settlement, not a town,
The old stone huts of the pioneers
Still grace the stony ground,
The folk are tough, if a little rough
But their hearts are beaten gold,
And they stick to their chosen country
Through the heat, and the bitter cold.

They once would bury the fallen in
The shade of the stringy barks,
But time went on, and they used the land
For one of their only parks,
They needed a brand new cemetery
And an undertaker too,
And that was the time Elijah Dark
Came shuffling into view.

Elijah, he was a drifter with
A mane of snow white hair,
He hadn't managed a shave back then
For the best part of a year,
He'd never been in a steady job
Some said he'd turn and run,
Whenever the folk would need a hand
Beneath the blazing sun.

It came as quite a surprise when he
Came in both shaved and cropped,
Waving the piece of paper that
Had hung in the little shop,
‘You're needing an undertaker, well,
I think that I'm your man,
I can shovel a six foot hole
As fast as any man can! '

They said they'd give him a try, and he
Set up in an old stone hut,
Hung up a sign, ‘Elijah Dark,
If you're dead, then look me up.'
They marked out a plot of land for him
To use as the cemetery,
He dug a couple of practice holes
And said, ‘It'll do for me.'

The dying there was a trifle slow
‘Til the cholera came to town,
It took out a couple of farmers, and
The widow, Hetty Brown,
He sent away for the coffins and
He stacked them up on a shelf,
Wrapping them up in plastic wrap
To sanitise his health.

Then Mrs. Jans, the farmer's wife
Came down to visit her ex,
Came storming out of the old stone hut
Like a matron spaced on Bex,
For Hetty lay on her back in there
With the farmer, mouth to mouth,
‘I knew that something was going on,
They're lying, south to south! '

Elijah said that he hadn't room,
That he'd only had one shelf,
‘I had to lie them on top, ' he said
But I'll swap your Jans with Ralph,
‘I want him buried, I want it now, '
She screamed in an instant flap,
And that's how the farmer, Mr. Jans
Was buried in plastic wrap.

The coffins came and it settled down
‘Til the cold of the winter snow,
Then three a week had cashed their chips,
Had thought it was time to go,
They lay in piles with the men on men,
And the women coy on the floor,
Elijah slept in a coffin with
The lid pulled down to get warm.

They had four funerals in one day
And the people came en masse,
Down from the little wooden church
Through the long and waving grass,
The holes were dug so they dropped them in
And they covered them with soil,
‘But where is the Undertaker? ' said
A chap called Nicholas Doyle.

They found the body of Andrew Watts
Still lying up on the shelf,
‘If he isn't buried, ' said Nicholas Doyle,
'Then Dark must have buried himself! '
They tossed a coin if they'd bother to dig,
Then went to follow their sport,
And that is why, at Cooper's Creek
They're an Undertaker short.

19 February 2013