Frank PremBiographyyellow mellow; desiccation northon the radioin the car when I was driving home the weatherman was chatting to ms drive time ... and at home we say if it's yellow let it mellow if it's brown flush it on down ... and then they went on to talk about using buckets at home in the shower especially to catch the water that runs away until the hot kicks in just like we do ~ today the government declared fifty percent maybe more of this massive continent is subject to special circumstances there’ll be drought relief for another two years each farmer will be able to buy five thousand dollars worth of counseling have his borrowings subsidised up to around a half of a million and maybe he'll decide to leave the land his bowl of dust that used to green in the spring but that'll be up to him and god perhaps or maybe this time it's the last of it I heard that in the heart of drought four each week find a brand new use for bailing twine on the edge of a ripe crop of un-reason and a harvest burden handed down through generations they swing bitter kissed by a hot wind from the north that whispers desiccation ~ some days he said our family can go all day with just one flush then gave the forecast for tomorrow fine again ~ © Frank Prem, 2007 a departure by the boy childthere was talk againtoday of el niño coming to an end like the end of a season or an equinox how will we know I wonder when it has occurred will a wet begin it's late and I should be asleep but I'm up and thinking about the boy child the wind is sounding and in the west the quarter from which we get our weather they have had hail and lightning deluge rain perhaps he is leaving already perhaps © Frank Prem, 2007 ~ lagoon #29It has come more quicklythan I'd expected less than a day since my last visit they are revealed in a miserable totality while we approach along the walking path a young boy a teenager is leaving the remnant billabong mud coating hands and legs as he rides by on a bicycle he has been wading and dabbling a few fish un-loved european carp are dead on the shoreline but these don't arrest the eye it is the ones in the air that make the breath catch for they have been mounted mouth first onto branches of the fallen trees that create the boundary and structure of the waterhole they hang still and dead but water-fat and shining only recently removed for display the boy calls a cheery hello as he rides away smiling I can see one ripple a sole escapee waits to be claimed by drought or some more unspeakable misadventure ~ © Frank Prem, 2007 lagoon #31we are a solemn gatheringnow I stand at the top of the path with you looking down into the bowl to me it is a forlorn sight with the floor cracked open like a crazed sore scabbing but too tender to touch the fallen trees are a disquiet in the thin embrace of silence tall weeds still green on moisture stolen from the drying corpse are a mourning crowd leaning in towards the heart of the bowl one fish two fish remain obscenely mounted flags waving farewell from upright grey branches others merging by degrees into the exhausted soil and the dust of a memory Copyright © Frank Prem 2007
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