The Falling Rain

• Harry McLaurin, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2011

The Falling Rain
The falling rain is an elixir of growth
for the powder dry paddocks of Glen Aila.
With each individual drop, puffs of brown red dirt
explode in the still air as the earth gasps and splutters
for what it has been denied for ten agonising years.
The land is table-top flat, tough and tested –
unable to procreate for years without the lifeblood
of the winding Avoca. But as the tin-pelting sound resonates
throughout the quiet, windless air, all is forgotten
in an ecstasy of precipitation.

The silver tin groans atop the old homestead,
unused to the weight of the sky’s blood.
The windows, streaked with tears of relief
cast shadows across the kitchen floor. The darkened sky
dimming the pale walls and family portraits
which have adorned the home for four generations.
A single leak drips and splatters, drips and splatters
on the scuffed floor as the bare country outside sings with joy.

For a decade, the drought had become the norm,
the crackled earth the usual, until the breaking rains
of that year swallowed the infertility of the farm.
Like Hell, rising from below, the Avoca brought
the polar opposite to the standard moistureless ground.
And it kept coming. Up and up and over the banks it flowed –
unprecedented for tiny Quambatook, scrambling
to save its possessions as nature’s potence swelled
and swamped the land in a tide of unnecessary destruction.

Silently it crept, in the night, across the paddocks,
easily outpaced but constantly rising and spreading,
gradually turning the peeling earth to mud. Lauren watched, alone,
from the homestead as the water rose. Her parents had left
after hastily building a levee to surround the house before
departing to save the neighbours’. Still it rose, until the
homestead was inescapable, completely surrounded with
murky liquid, brimming the banks.

For two long days, Lauren was alone.
No electricity, no service and no contact
with life outside the satellite of her home.
Scrounging for food, watching the banks
filled with anxiety as the trees sank – she waited.
Not impatiently, not panicking, but wisely
protecting the homestead from the swirling
potion that brewed beyond the frail barrier,
holding back Avoca’s fury.

A family rejoiced when the water eventually receded,
for nature had lost, and Lauren would forever remember
the tale of the falling rain.