|
DARLING RIVER BACK BLOCK SEQUENCE
5. In-Flood
the river floods during queensland summer monsoons
emus wading the fencelines in their brown skirts/ silver
water whistling and popping around their ankles/ levee
banks keeping the darling out at its wildest/ my father
is sitting on the backstep rolling a smoke/ talking in low
tones an earshot away from the lapping water/ 'big rains
a comin'/ the ants have come up over the levee bank/
the frogs went croak croak'/ and the clouds have scattered
across the blue before the cold front/ the threat of flood/
rising up as a shadow along my father's forehead/ the
message of water from the far northern borders/ from the
low weirs of wilcannia and bourke/ who trapping water
for local use/ now resign themselves to the pressure of
flood/ dad said: you drove through the roadblock signs at
3 o'clock in the morning/ the floodwaters whistled past
your headlights: the horizon black/ the 4WD was about to
come to a stop/ brown water swirling up past the winch
over the bonnet/ spiders skating the water/ snakes were
unearthed on their way down the river/ then you heard a
cow crying out in the pitch/ a few days later/ you should
have turned away/ but you saw her four legs and bloated
body splayed at the sky/ as if the receding floodwater
had caused her skeleton to spring up out of the ground/
properties had been cut off for weeks/ ants and centipedes
were all washed down together/ trying to climb one
another/ and the heavier animals rolled over and over/
eyes missing and grey fleece hanging loose in the water/
there was an eastern grey joey stranded on a bitumen
island/ kicked out of its mother's pouch too early/ fur
plastered to bone/ I stood quietly in knee deep water/
the joey's heart pounded in its bony chest/ it barked
gruffly/ I moved towards it/ making wildlife rescuer
noises and pulling my windcheater down into a makeshift
pouch/ the joey came towards me a couple of steps on
a spring board tail and held up its short black forearms/
i grabbed it by the shoulder/ as it shrieked and tried to
leap away/ I bundled it into my clothing/ it knew that
i was not its mother/ I trudged back to the nissan as it
dried itself with its small pink tongue/ tomorrow we
rebuild the levee banks/ isolated communities become
islands/ waiting for food and mail drops/ on blocks of
highland safety/ standing rigid like the joey/ in
preparation for sky lifts/ or for a swirling muddy sea | 
