OLD MAC

Lean, 

a shock of greying hair,

eyes as clear as the mid-day sun,

a hand so steady

that he could smoke a cigarette

down to its butt, unstubbed.

“Old Mac”.

 

I had known of him

since childhood,

when my father had

told us of

this legendary Scotsman

he had met out bush.

 

Some twenty years later,

back in the bush myself,

Mac was still there,

true to my father’s description.

“Old Mac”.

 

Engaged initially

to care for indigenous groups

at risk from atomic testing,

he had continued on

as consultant, adviser, friend,

to the old men of the desert.

 

Sometimes you would hear

that he was coming –

sometimes not.

Mostly he would just appear

out of the desert,

stay for a few days

and then move on.

 

At times,

he would visit for a meal,

but never to stay,

always sleeping

in the back of his truck –

his “boudoir”.

 

Eventually

retirement came, and death -

with plans for

Mac’s ashes to be scattered

by a bush cleric,

in the land where

he had lived and worked for so long .

 

But fate

or perhaps Mac

prevailed.

A shoe-box of ashes,

an elusive cleric,

a rugged bush vehicle,

and a rough bush track

found  Mac

scattering himself - 

“Old Mac”.