Waltzing Matilda

Waltzing Matilda

Noel Laflin

10-31-18

A far away ice cream truck was playing “Waltzing Matilda” about an hour ago.” Wispy strains of the tune were drifting throughout the neighborhood and into our open windows on this fine, perfectly nice Halloween afternoon.

Normally the trucks are spewing out nursery rhymed themes or inappropriately timed Christmas carols.
Noting the day, I should be envisioning witches and pumpkins.

Instead I am whistling Australia’s unofficial national anthem and looking up words like billabong, swagman, and coolibah tree.

But thanks to Wikipedia and posted lyrics to the original poem and song, I learned that there is a ghost calling from the billabong, so maybe the song fits the day after all.