Competition

Third Prize

Our Home, Australia
by Sarah Webster
Green Valley, NSW

Earthy amber plains stretch across a pastel sky,
The chalky wisps of cloud watch the stockman passing by,
The country is ablaze, like the swagman’s campfire,
The flames that lick the Milky Way,
The brambles crackling amongst the hay,
The wafting smoke, a blackened grey,
All cooped up by the rusted shed and a fence of bent barbwire.

How the swagman loves his country! Loves to wander through its heart,
Right down to every paddock, every childish billy cart,
And so he spends his days, through pounding heat and swamping rains,
Crouched beside the shaded billabong,
Listening to the Kookaburra’s song,
Where the molten emerald crocs belong,
How the swagman loves his country! The outback pulsing through his veins.

How the drover knows his country! Knows it like the back of his hand!
Right down to every Angus, every Shorthorn on the land,
He’d look out from his muddy window as he drove his ute,
The Kelpies with paws black as grease,
The sheep, bronzed with a dusty fleece,
Like every fold and every crease,
Of the back of his weathered hand! Oh! The country’s beaut!

How the shearer prides his country!  Feels its glory in his core!
He knows no matter where he goes he couldn’t be happy more,
Than to shear at his home station, hear the buzzing of the shed,
The swiftness of the ringer’s blow,
The jumbuck putting on a show,
Shouting ‘Wool away!’ and the fleece will go,
As the classer eyes the snagger’s wool and briefly shakes his head.

And as the tucker’s getting burnt, smoke rises up the shed,
The swagmen, drovers, shearers too, are packin’ up for bed,
They pack away their blades, their billies ‘neath a Coolabah,
By the sprigs of myrtle green,
The giant rocks of tainted sheen,
Writhing snakes amongst the scene,
How we all do love our country! Our home, Australia.

Highly Commended

Sundried
by Sarah Webster
Green Valley, NSW

A lone drop
Of water.
Slippery and warm,
Like liquid gold,
Escapes from its steel prison.
It slithers.
Slips from my tongue,
Trickles down my chin,
Pools along the cracks,
Of a sundried land.

The dust swirls.
A storm of amber and auburn,
Twisting and lurching,
In its violent rage.
So the rams,
With a reluctant bleat,
Bear a bronze fleece.

Puddles,
Of golden fire,
Pierce the crumbling earth,
Seeping through the fractures,
Of the milky clouds.
The country is ablaze -
A fire among the eucalypts.
But the firemen,
See no smoke.
They do not come.
They do not come.

My knees,
Dry and aching,
Collapse to the shattered earth,
And my desperate prayers,
Are muttered, 
With a frazzled breath -
But the gods do not avail.
And they do not come.
They do not come.

Chimes of twisted steel,
And feeble string,
Assembled from these two hands,
Once upon a time,
Have seen a thousand droughts.
And whisper to me -
‘They are coming’
‘They are coming’.

From the depths,
Of silence,
And despair,
I hear music.

The thunder roars,
Like the cymbals clash,
As the clouds cloak the naked sky.
A chilling wind billows slyly,
And a sea of blue engulfs the fire -
Like a poison,
Spreading through the veins,
Of the earth’s soul.

Raindrops,
Icy and crisp,
Like liquid sunshine,
Sprinkle.
Slip from my tongue,
Trickle down my chin,
Pool along the cracks,
Of a sundried land.

Now.
At last.
They have come.