Cloudburst.
Here on the creaking stoop,
surveying our bare fields,
Da and me chew the cud:
rain forecasts and poor yields.
In the paddock, a dust devil,
spinning red dust in the air,
like a ghost or some dancing phantom,
clear as day, and then not there.
“If your poor old Ma were here,”
Da says without a doubt,
“she’d say, ‘Just one more season,’
She’d say, ‘Wait out the drought.’”
But we’ve had eight years of this now,
the last one the worst one yet,
Da only growing older,
more stubborn and more debt.
Before Ma passed, she said to me,
“Look after your Old Man,”
but my Da just never listens,
won’t sell up while we can.
I try again to tell him,
explain time’s running out,
that the neighbours are all gone,
that the bailiffs will be out.
But Da just shakes his head,
rasps a rough hand on his jaw.
“One more season,” he says quietly,
“One more season. Just one more.”
So we study the rain forecast,
plough the fields and till the soil,
furrowed brows and pindan earth,
praying the seeds don’t spoil.
Hopefully, we look skyward,
but it’s blue skies without fail.
Day to day and week to week,
more red bills in the mail.
On the stoop each evening,
I keep quiet somehow,
as the Old Man sips his beer,
calm as a bloody Hindu cow.
Until one balmy twilight,
after another cloudless day
I say, “Enough’s enough, Da.
I can’t go on this way.
“The rain ain’t coming back,”
I say it’s plain to see,
“And she’s not either, Da,
There’s nothing here for you and me.”
The Old Man, he just shrugs,
and with another slug of beer,
says, “I don’t blame you, son,
and I won’t try to keep you here.”
Just then the wind picks up,
a dust devil dances to and fro,
and Da just nods and winks and says,
“It’s OK, you can go.”
He turns then, smiles and hugs me hard,
his embrace a surprise,
but then I catch his sadness;
the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
When it came to disagreements,
my Ma would always say,
“Make your peace before bedtime,”
but I couldn’t on that day.
So I packed my bags that night,
tossed and turned in my old bed,
haunted by Ma’s face
and the dying words she said.
***
In the dark of night, I start awake
to a bang on the rooftop.
Like a pebble dropped on the tin.
Or could it be … a raindrop!
There’s another and then another,
Drumming harder, rat-a-tat-tat.
It’s only bloody raining!
Ma, what d’ya think of that?!
I scrabble out of bed,
stumble sleepily to the porch.
Da’s there in the darkness,
scanning the fields with his torch.
And there in the misty torchlight,
no light there from the moon,
not a shower or a storm,
it’s like a bloody great monsoon!
Da steps blindly off the stoop
and almost instantly he’s drenched.
He turns his grizzled head skyward,
eyes closed and arms outstretched.
He just stands there, laughs and shouts,
but what, I cannot hear,
over the pealing cracks of lightning,
the rumble of thunder that’s so near.
He’s jabbering and hooting,
like he’s talking to the farm,
looking ten years younger,
the rain a soothing balm.
And it’s then I understand,
as the water streaks his face,
for him, this country’s Ma,
for him, she is this place.
***
Sunrise breaks, pale and warm,
the smell of rain on the air,
as we sit on the stoop with coffee,
knowing this year’s crop will be fair.
“Da,” I say, “this year is saved,
but times have been so lean.
The drought will be back again.
Can you leave her … the farm, I mean?”
But Da just shakes his head again,
rasps a rough hand on his jaw.
“One more season,” he says quietly,
“One more season. Just one more.”
So, I unpack in my room,
pull on my hat and gum boots,
then join Da in the fields
surrounded by green shoots.
Prompts
Genre: Drama
Theme: On thin ice
Emotion: Impatient