Ghosts - Lassiter's Reef Poem by Paul Warren

We met him on the road one day
In an old Ford truck along the way
He was stopped on side as a Nullabor Plain greet
As a bushy dressed casually against the heat

He was a prospector looking for Lassiter's reef
And the years showed in his face weathered with grief
For the search had cost him over the years
With his family lost in his times of tears

The truck was old and needed water for the radiator
So we supplied it to him whilst the engine got cooler
As he stood he smoked a home made cigarette rollie
He told us he had been in the desert 30 years steady

Years ago he had spoken to Lassiter about the gold
And had been searching the desert to get a hold
Of the millions promised in golden treasure
With the desert over the years making its measure

So he topped up his radiator and off he went
I saw him occasionally after this meeting event
This wasn't too many people in the desert those days
Then the Maralinga atomic tests occurred to away

But he had strayed through a back road into the area made
The explosion and the radiation killed him as his life did fade
They found him in his truck on the side of the road
And in the pocket of his shirt there was a gold nugget load

He was cremated and they spread his ashes in the desert ground
And his truck was placed with machinery radiated and now unsound
The mystery of where he found the gold nugget now drives me
In the desert looking for gold in the Lassiter's Reef will be

Now sometimes in the evening when the western sky is a red aglow
I see an old Ford truck driving on the desert roads quite slow
And I see the him driving with the gold glint in his eyes
But the smile on his face tells me that he knows where the gold lies.

© Paul Warren Poetry