My copy of FourW twenty-seven arrived the other day, and I was really pleased to see ‘A daughter’s dream’ – one of the songs from Lullaby & Lament: A Song Cycle – published inside its pages. FourW is an annual anthology of poetry and prose produced by Booranga Writers’ Centre in Wagga Wagga. David Gilbey and the rest of the Booranga team have done a fabulous job with this year’s edition, and I particularly love the cover.
‘A daughter’s dream’ is one of my favourite songs from the cycle, and the lyrics are about my father’s death. He died alone, in a hospital room on the Gold Coast, while I was in Armidale. I was planning to visit him the next day, and if things had turned out differently, I would have done all the things I dreamed about in this song:
A man, he is dying
in a room all alone
his body decaying
his thoughts not his own.
His daughter is dreaming
in a town far away
of the things she will do
of the things she will say.
She will tackle her fear
she will look death in the face
she will sing to her father
she will do it with grace.
She will wipe down his body
she will kiss his soft cheek
she will place his hands gently
on his chest, as in sleep.
She will do all of this
and then she will weep.
