Lew,

I will write a poem for you
when you’re gone.
(On one condition of course.)

I’ll tell of the tales
you spun,
of painting black stripes on humbugs

in your Dad’s lolly factory.

Of travelling as a showie,
riding the wall of death
or
further back in younger years,
riding atop a timber jinker
piled high with logs.

And later years in the northern land of crocs
and
T.I.
and hard hat divers
and running a pub.

and
scratching for tin on the Cape
and finding Airocobra Aircraft
left on the beach

and Cocky Watkin
and Sid Beck and
a flotilla of sea farers
you knew (mostly gone now to D.J.’s crowded locker.)

and beginning the Volunteer Coast Guard.

and
army/air force days
(you sailed on sea and air)

and secret cave art behind Lavarak Baracks
and bush tucker man days.

and your memorabilia crammed

house/room/shed/mind

full of native spears,
pearl shell
and precious books
and bits of everything!

And wanting to be left
finally at the Point
to make a point.

(Lew wanted his ashes to be scattered at the point between Florence and Arthur Bays, Magnetic island, as these were his mother and father’s names.)