The sky is broken
A mirror of despair
Clouds know no rain
The dry earth, dehydrated from the searing sun
Bloodied are the cattle
So dead from no grass
These rivers once ran with blue ribbons of water-
Are now the bare beds of pebble and pitiful mud

Across the riverbank
Sits Death
A silent spectator
A marvellous spectre of woe and waste
Bony fingers hidden
Empty sockets of the eyes
Black like the day

And yet why do I feel no fear?
No dread, no sorrow or regret?
I have watched this land wither
Die away and choke on its? own sand
Tearing at the earth with fleshless fingers
Only unearthing more and more barren loam-

I remember the children
Dancing on the hill
The sound of church bells
The breeze that left no buttercup still

Lazy afternoons on a friend?s veranda
Sipping cool drinks and laughing happily
Curtains of purple flowers falling from the branches of the Jacaranda

The fields of gold
So shimmering in the sun
The stories of the land proudly told
By older people that sat and smiled at the children at their feet

And yet this life is no more
A distant memory of fruitfulness
No hungered people at my door
So large were their desperate eyes
Bottomless and scared
I could only see the corpses and the flies
My children are dead
Leaving me alone here in this place
Of shrivelled splendour and silent dread

The baskets of fruit are empty and unravelled
The cloths of dresses so faded and old

Some left and went to other places to start anew
But many stayed here for hope of the rain medicine
But oh Lord none came to rescue us
And slowly they died or drifted off with the sand storms
Lucky them not to see the encroaching desert?s forms

I stand here now on the side of what was the river
To watch him walk-
No float-
Across the stones and perished fish
His cloak billowing like the night
His silent command clear to me
Follow him onto eternity
And yet I feel no fear, no sorrow so real
I merely trail behind him on his path

We pass the condemned school with its lined up desks
Ghostly children are all that is left
Written words of homework upon the chalkboard
The houses of white lean to one side
Nearly resting upon the ground
Where once the flowers grew and reached out to the blue
Cracked and meaningless are they now
Just vacant carcases of rotten scents
That mixes with the winds that blow

And yet the road to the land beyond is long
So endless and desolate to me
In the distance is a green throng
Perhaps trees or bushes that bare food
But I am not hungry
Not anymore
The crosses of the departed are standing even now
So tranquil is the atmosphere
Beneath the heavens gaze
The larks fly in circles overhead
Crying out to each other

Yet I still follow him
Not minding the heat of the sun
And finally I see them in the vastness of the grasslands
Together in song and play
This is heaven I understand
Where the children dance hand in hand
I join the ring of joyful bodies
And sing along to the familiar hymn
This I know is paradise
Paradise still
So quiet is the day
So warm and wet is the earth beneath my feet
I feel it now about me like a glow
The promise of forever here in this place
To sing and dance and talk beneath the shelter of trees
Knowing this is home
Knowing never again will I be alone.