Just a Few Eggs

 Mike Cleeland

A poem

Shearwaters Return Exhibition

October 2013

Just a Few Eggs

 
The wild spring gales every year
bring mutton birds back home
to lay their eggs in burrows
in the coastal sandy loam
And locals take the greatest care
to nurture every one
(except eggs laid on top, they'd only
dry out in the sun)

In early years the danger was
of poachers coming down
They'd dig up all the burrows
and erode the breeding ground
So the locals would report illegal
actions that they saw
(and take a few eggs home with them;
a well deserved reward)

And so upon Cape Woolamai
in 1933
the Cleeland boys set out to find 
an egg or two or three
The birds were laying thick and fast
and eggs were everywhere
It seemed like such a waste to leave
them all just lying there

They'd gathered up a hatful each
but didn't have a tin
so they nursed them in their singlets
and tucked their shirts well in
then turned their horses off the Cape
and down onto the beach
trying to manage eggs and reins, 
with one hand holding each

Along the way a few eggs cracked
and yolk would dribble down
so the rider reached inside
and scooped it out onto the ground
As the reader can imagine
these were pretty messy jobs
as the horses footprints mingled
with a trail of yellow blobs

As they rode around a sandhill
with about a dozen each
a rider came towards them
on his bike around the beach
It was "Cliffy" the Inspector
looking out for poaching crew
and the boys approached him warily
and wondered if he knew
 

They must have looked suspicious
but he didn't stop to see
why they both leaned slightly forward
and had only one hand free
He nodded as he passed them
and proceeded on his way
and the Cleelands nodded back to him
then raced to get away


Eventually they made it home
and hid the eggs inside
then disappeared around the farm
to find a place to hide
forgetting all about the broken
shells they'd left behind
the trail of damning evidence
that Cliff was bound to find

Then a message reached the homestead
that described their little lark
of the meeting on the beach and how
the boys had left their mark
warning "If you must get eggs from Woolamai
then get them in the dark!" 

- Mike Cleeland