Death Has Come

• Bethany Davey, Grade 7
• Poetry
• 2019

The dusty desert land's parched mouth gobbles up livestock and livelihoods alike, attempting to quench its thirst.
The sun pelts its rays down upon the crops and burns them dry,
The wind blows away the rain and with it all hope for survival,
The people cry out to the heavens as the once mighty rivers run dry.
The kookaburra sings a melancholy song as it awaits its death,
He no longer laughs and cackles in the leafy shade of the trees,
For their branches bear nothing and are sickly and grey,
The last blade of grass withers, and the last leaf falls.
The people cry unashamedly at their coming doom,
And then the rain trickles down dripping from the clouds,
It revives the land but it cannot fill the dams.
The people squander their last chance, they see the rain and think that it is over,
The kookaburra still does not laugh nor does he sing as the people do.
The people drink mercilessly, and the earth soaks it up like the sun.
The last drop is spent, and death has come.