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Flood Delusion

By Rosanne Dingli

In his sleep it comes through pipes and gutters.    Spurt   Gush
It runs; like in a burst aqueduct bearing weight; litre per kilo
Heavier than the tractor in the barn, fleeting as hay batches donated to feed
His cows.   Gout   Spout
It comes; over the north fence. Changing his world, changing levels and notches
On termite-eaten four-by-fours marked for decades with dates of past floods;
Over the tombstone in the far paddock where Horrie lies, buried with his gun.
Flow   Run   Past night windows it eddies; swirls, smelling
Of grass and dung and crushed foliage from gums at the Five Mile
It comes. Whirling and pooling up coronet, fetlock, hock of the last horse standing
Of a team of six. Up gaskin and ergot, over forearm and knee of
A long-suffering mount raising its muzzle
In alarm at the change, the shift, the sudden downpour sheeting
From skies purple with possibilities, with relief.   Stream   Rush
Remnant streaks of a white sunset turned orange. Orange with silhouettes
Of mill and trees cut from carbon; singed with the soot of flames so close
They warped the gate. That gate Horrie fashioned from lengths of pipe
Welded roughly in the half-light of the shadowy barn
The day he declared he'd never seen it so parched and dry. So hopeless
He took off to the crags and never came back.
Thank crikey he cannot see it now.   Rush   Surge
Torrents reel against the house, peel away cladding where
Nails were never enough. Where bins and dog bowls are carried away
By current and wave; rise, bounce, wallow. Disappear
Into a creek so swollen it is the stuff of dreams. Dreams
Spurt   Stream   Steam Dream
Wake, wake to chalky sensation of dry tongue, dulled eyes;
To red red dust and gusts through glass louvres curling eyelashes
With latent heat.   Singe   Scorch
No change, no change. It's the auction brought this on; hammering head and gut
With figures, totals, sums so poor he swore. Perhaps it's not worth seeing them
Trot, clatter over a ramp onto rivals' trucks,
His cows.
But better than taking the tractor to them, bucket spannered on
With desperate fingers; shake, tremble. Dry as bone. Dry
As horns on a carcase skull going white out there. Ah—better, he knows,
Than piling them for a fire. Out there where two dams are dams no more,
Where silent creek and ghastly memory of fish kills
Assault the mind's nostrils like a plague. And sand pours through fists like water.
Water?   Water?   No such thing. The future Horrie foretold,
Of water politics and water war is upon them,
Searing, branding onto hide and soul this symbol of desolation.
Two waves, once the emblem of the farm
Now signifies not water, but steam; heat miraging a prospect of fear
As obvious, as blatant as that in their eyes as they climbed that ramp
His cows.
But in his dreams, it flows. Every night a flood to bait and tempt,
Tantalize and bruise, to prove
He cannot help but dream.   Rush   Splash