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PAUL HETHERINGTONOne RoomIn teeming rain this disregarded placeputs on rare beauty: sinuous sticksshine that minutes ago were dry as dust,and toughened leaves seem newly reaching outas if to cradle all the wet they can,softened, like small hands joined to gatherwater from a tap to wash hot facesafter toil at sums, or pulling clumpsof withered grass. And I recall how wewould pull at recess from the wall the grassthat threatened with fire our drab one-room school,a place that was a haven of respitefrom the awesome heat and miles of glaring wheat.One room a sanctuary,where books and pretty drawings and some desksmeant we were proper students, that we'd knowhow to escape the failing yellow cropsthat hardly fed us, or fed our failing hope.Returning now the school is closed revealsthe broken wall smeared with an umber stain,scrawled with graffiti. Old bits of wood,asbestos and rusty ironmake a paltry, broken heap of junk,bits of a dream, in unseasonal rain.102WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989