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JULY 13TH, 1997, AFTER RAIN THE MAGPIES
After rain the magpies and other native birds are in the park picking around in the grass, the grass seems to have grown sweeter in the rain, as though it became juicy like a million green cobs of corn that I could bite into, there was on ad on Aussie TV that showed a poor old farmer all dried and shrivelled up on his front verandah, he was as thin lipped as the landscape he looked into, his brown skin like wrinkled vinyl and his eyes all tiny and squinty like those Australian men tough before their time, that have looked into the sun too much and for too long, and sunlight from out of the blue sky without a cloud in sight, then a miracle occurs and as if from nowhere, these huge droplets come pitter patter one after the other upsetting and unsettling the dust on the wooden floorboards, at this point the farmer is rejuvinated, he takes off his hat and his face lights up like a old gidgee log suddenly on fire, and as all men do around that age and probably as soon as they are married, he immediately calls out to his wife, Mavis or Margaret or some name like that, those outback property wives all seem to have them, as though all the old crows could have a nasal conversation along a property fence, 'Well did you hear about so & so the other day?,' anyway she comes out and they are both standing there getting wet and staring up at that sky without a cloud in sight, then we move back from the scene, and look for the cause of this break in the drought, and then you know what, it's two country kids sitting on the roof after climbing out of the window of the upstairs room, and they are sitting there together, biting into these big cobs of corn, and all the juice from the corn is raining onto the farmer and his wife, proving for the manufacturer that Australian corn can be that juicy, that it can break a Queensland drought, now that is very handy corn indeed, and that's how those magpies in the grass as sweet as corn on that day up at Royal Park made me feel, they broke some drought inside me, there were other birds too, galahs, turquoise parrots and fire tail finches, native birds always come into the city when there's bush fire, a drought or excess rain, but they don't stay long and mainly hang around native trees whilst they are here, their four star hotel accommodations. |
