Do you know who wrote the mystery poem The Rimi Bushman?

Ten years ago, a man gave country singer Ron Mitchell a poem and suggested he put it to music.

Mitchell never saw the man again, but now he's used the poem for the lyrics of a song and he's on a quest to track him down.

The Rimu Bushman was the poem and the venue was the Winton War Memorial Hall in Southland.

"And he said, 'take that home and see if you can put some music to it.'"

The poem sat in a drawer, Mitchell said, with musical inspiration failing to strike.

"The next time we went, I hadn't done anything that was worth listening to and I said to him, this would be a year later, I haven't got anything worth listening to with that poem you gave me yet.

"And he said, 'what poem was that?' His memory of it was all gone like he was an older guy, he'd be 80 plus."

The poem was anonymous, Mitchell said.

"On the bottom, it said, 'this is an anonymous poem dedicated to the old coast bushman. It's how we remember them and their stories - to each of them timber!' It says."

The poem, professionally printed, has a picture of an axe and a stump towards the bottom of the page, he said.

"Other than that, I haven't got a clue where it come from."

Now the poem has the musical accompaniment the old man had originally suggested.

"It was in a draw for years, and then when I've been working on my new album, I got it out and thought, oh, yeah, that might work. And played a few things, and it seemed to fit.

"And I used the last line of the second verse and invented a chorus out of that. Just doubled it up a bit."

Now Mitchell wants to track down the author of the poem.

"Just to put his or her name on the CD, there's a written by bit there, and it would be good to know.

"And if he's still with us, or she, would they like what I've done with it? Or would they say, 'get rid of it?'"

While he doesn't believe the old fellow who gave it to him is the author, he'd like to make contact if he's still around.

"He was just an old guy, 80-year-old guy, with a suit jacket on quite a quite a tidy looking gentleman."

Mitchell's musician daughters Jenny, Nicola and Maegan appear on the album.

"One of the songs that that we're doing on my new album, they're doing all the backing vocals. You'll hear them all come through behind me, it just brings tears to your eyes."

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.