Fields in Flood
For weeks now the wind has been keening,
cascading its tears into creeks
sobbing small streams into torrents,
the torrents now springing small leaks.
Around us the rivers are rising,
wet-fisted they break sodden banks,
huddling the sheep in their paddocks,
drowning the grass round their shanks.
Floodwaters bury the highway
choking the freight and the fields
and pelicans thunder the sky-way,
casting their rods and their reels.
Alys Jackson
Alys said: I wrote this poem after visiting NSW recently and hearing about the devastating floods that cut off the Newell Highway. The farmer I spoke to told me that hundreds of pelicans appeared from nowhere to feed on the fish in the floodwaters.
Australian Children’s Poetry 