Jack The Miner Poem by Francis Duggan

Off of old dirt track that winds through Selby forest on bark of still standing though now dead blackwood tree
Are letters etched by knife the worst for wear now that you would have to strain your eyes to see,
It reads pop died on July 10 the other letters unreadable by the bark overgrown
His monument one might say very modest and outside of Selby he was hardly known.

I've heard it said his name was Jack the Miner and little else about the man I know
He had a cottage in the wood they tell me but that is going back many years ago
Perhaps his spirit in the forest is still living from the giant trees his soul not far away
Not many people in the Yarra Ranges would know about the old woodman today.

A man who lived his life in Nature's garden and Nature's ways he surely came to know
The gray shrike thrush still pipes his notes in Selby as his ancestor did long years ago
The same notes that were heard by Jack the Miner near where the creek through the undergrowth flow
And people leave but Mother Nature lives forever and to Selby wood the Seasons come and go.

A dead blackwood tree that still stands in Selby forest less
than twenty metres off the old dirt track
Is the monument to one who lived and died there a few old timers still recall old Jack
By all accounts he was one who loved Nature and perhaps his soul in Selby lives today
From the high gums off Nation Road it would seem his soul could never be that far away.