Marilyn Humbert
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The Flood

beside the river
I listen to leaves
chafe
in the warm breeze
of another time

Days and days of rain roar in on the back of a weakening cyclone, breaking the drought, turning grey-clay wetlands of the Dawson River to sludge. The water level continues to rise. Runoff upstream fills the watercourse to overflowing and rolls across the floodplain to the horizon and beyond. Scars and depressions become great lakes, drowning the land.

sucking water
in great gulps
trees slurp
through cracked lips
and swollen tongues

sap swells,
buds erupt in rashes . . .
as water recedes
crowds of eucalypts sprout
among weeds reaching for sun