DROUGHT - written a while ago in Kenilworth




Until recently Queensland was in severe drought. Parts still are. This was written a while ago but is still applicable in some areas. I pray for the farmers who still suffer the effects of drought.



The land is aching. Parched. I look from my veranda to dry yellow-brown grass, plants dying, even weeds wilting. The entire countryside is tired, drained.










The river has shrunk in parts to a narrow silver thread, trickling lazily over dry rocks. Only the deep hole there to swim and cool off. Down near the little stream are banks of cracked mud. Dry and scaly. In the wet weather the mud swells, and now it has shrunk.



Further up, big cracks form in the land.

Crows make loud protesting ‘ark’ sounds. They hover and flap in the dusty air.



Over dinner one night I comment how pretty the yellow-flowering creepers are on the trees near the bank.

“They’re a pest,” Jim tells me. “They kill the trees. Suck the life out of them. They’re parasites.”

Oh.

I wonder if, in drought, only parasites thrive.



I watch one of the trees sinking under its load of vines. Stooped like an old man hunched against the wind. Bony knuckled finger-branches clutching the dry air.



Clouds rise in the sky one morning. Rain! I think. Their bellies are grey with promise. But they rise higher and higher and are gone.

The setting sun defies the prayers for rain.

Farmers are desperate.



The leaves outside my window hang limp. The grass there is dry, scorched. Crisp in parts.

            Photo Elvira Meridy White

My heart aches for the farmers. I pray they will have the resources, natural and spiritual, to survive this hard season. I have learned to view it as a disaster, but also part of a pattern. Jim’s philosophical awareness of the seasons helped. All his knowledge as a farmer has helped to make this beautiful property. 



And I see in the Bible, in Isaiah 41:18 (second half) – “I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.”



He will. It seems thirst, dryness, whether it is land or people, attracts water. Real rain or spiritual rain.






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