pdf download - Westerly Magazine

JEAN KENTWaiting Out the DroughtWaiting for rain in the wheatlands,the grownups barometer my moods.The smallest insult clouds my sky.They look out over cracking blacksoil plainsand I fear the lightning strike in their joke:"Lennox Walker says rain on the twenty-fifth,but here comes one little thundercloud now."Six years of age and as flat as the paddocksafter tractors have rolled them,in the garden of toasted coconut grassand roses which fall apartwhile my cousins fly bomber planes crashinginto a Germany of grapevines and bindiis,I watch a butterfly capture sunand fold it - into its wings.We only float a minute.Then the glitter is grounded.A cat must be fed, a room tidied, a monthof Womens Weeklies like dropped handkerchiefsaaa-tish-ooed off the sitting room floor.Beyond the house and gardenblack crows fall like flags at half mastover cattle skulls and land all rocks and darkness,fertile but cracked, thirsty as a vase.Carefully I step over its opening throat -the only flowers on its flaked lipsbluebells, the frantic dustof gum stamens and some smalltomatoey-petalled thingswhich hide their faces in their handsand will not be consoled, no matterhow I nurse them after digging themfrom the heat and dragging them home.94WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989