38. WHERE I LIVE IN DROUGHT

A farm in the mountains

once full of grass fed cattle,

a home near a cliff edge

where Wedge-tailed Eagles soar.

I used to have a garden

but Red-necked Wallabies

needed it more;

devouring fifty rosebushes,

even ring-barking trees

for something to eat.

The last good rainfall

was winter three years ago;

since then the big dry

has become a climate disaster.               

I have watched as cows,

resembling calves themselves,

birthed puny babes

with spindly legs.

I saw my husband exhaust himself hand feeding the core breeders we have left.

Saw cattle swamp the buggy hungry for hay or cotton seed.

I thought they’d trample him in the rush to fill their bellies.

That was last spring, summer, autumn, winter, and those before it.

Two successive years of piddling rainfall, well under average.

Spring is the hardest time. 

Out of bitter winter into the heat with no rain, no green, no ease.

Every day is closer to rain.

The drought must end sometime.

It will rain again.

We’ve been saying these tired lines for thirty-two successive months;

and it’s hard to hold out, to keep believing it will happen when even

the optimists are subdued.
 
Three summers hotter than any on record. Thirty or so forty degree days each year baking an already scorched earth until it cracks.

Until we crack

until farms and farmers fail

though they’ve drought proofed

and understocked

and delayed planting crops for ages.

Until towns close businesses

and townspeople crack

then fall apart

with even the cities buckling

under harsh water restrictions.

Longing for my home to be green again, like it once was. 

 I pray for rain that never happens; follow up rain that never comes.

 So hard to see dark clouds drift overhead and think maybe this time, only to get a dry electrical storm where lightning strikes start fires.

Watering my home garden I still have love and family, and all the birds nearby. 

It is a place I see Welcome Swallows sun-baking on our roof, or taking in the view from my clothesline, surveying the dry valley below.

From my front door I could see a gang of cockatoos decorating a Cypress pine yesterday.
Screeching, I could hear them greeting the new morning, as they bit off small branches to sharpen their curved beaks. I stayed watching as they flew off through misty mountains.

 
And I’m living-

breathing in the scent of honey

from gum blossom,

where Little Lorikeets chirp

and gorge on pale lemon flowers.

A home where finches scamper over hard packed dirt to peck for insects, where Superb Blue Wrens play and Friar Birds cackle; where I’m serenaded by Magpies begging scraps.

 I’m living with a glimmer 

of hope for better times-

for steady rain 

to quench this earth;

making lush green grass

 grow as high as my chin.

I’d love to see our Angus cows

with coats glowing shiny black

as they graze the hills

feeding playful calves.

I want to gaze 

at the splendour of it all

how it used to be

before climate change.

My home place is the

space I love to bits.

A place full of the sweetest tweets

flying past in a blue blue sky.

A place packed with birds 

that save me from despondency-

where I still live in drought.