Syrian Mary
She walked alone and trudged the miles
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along her chosen route;
Syrian Mary, the hawker
was known with fond repute.
She started out from Mudgee town
along the Gulgong road,
three baskets full of ladies' wares
in forty pounds of load.
To Leadville, Coolah, Cassilis,
four times each year her trade
found ladies with their open arms
and cash that she'd be paid.
Another fifty miles to home
and then she'd start again,
no thought of weather's challenges
like frost or midnight rain.
With pins and needles, lacy things
and clothes for each new born,
two hundred miles of "Welcome Ins"
she'd greet from early morn.
She strode along at pace each day
with trinkets, candles, string
and orders taken last time round
if she could find, she'd bring.
Do traders of the world today
take time to now look back
how custom was so personal
when Mary trod her track?
The colony beyond the coast
owes much to enterprise
of hawkers and their weary feet
that thought today defies.
by Kevin Pye
2018 Norman McVicker Youth Literary awards
Prose Winners
First Brittany Doolan, Coonabarabran with Two sides to every coin. Second Yehezq’El Schuster, Gin Gin with Battle of the innocent. Third Kodi Sawtell, Coochin with Her name is hope.
Poetry Winners
First Brittany Doolan with My home. Second Rachel Goodwin, Thurgoona with Tall bluey. Third Grace Mathews, Banora Point with A memoir of a stolen boy.
Submissions
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