It hardly rains
but when it pours
on sleepy desert ground
the speedy changes
to the land
will certainly astound.
A dried-up creek
now overflows
expanding to a lake.
And dormant life-forms
eggs and seeds
immediately awake.
The dry red dirt
transforms into
a carpet made of flowers.
And tiny creatures
start to hatch
within a few short hours.
With decorations
all in place
the waterbirds arrive.
Providing
lots of music.
Now the party’s come alive!
First Published in CSIRO’s Scientriffic #66 2009
The fires came through the other day,
blazing fierce, no warning given.
A careless spark, a flash of red,
and then it grew, by strong winds driven.
It jumped the road, it charred the land,
firefighters fought it, no houses lost.
But this was home to wildlife too;
in terms of them, who’ll count the cost?
After the Dean fire near Creswick, Victoria. Image courtesy of Gina Pestana
Hey, Mr Sunshine,
where are you today?
Rain is falling heavily,
the sky is dark and grey.
All the kids are stuck inside
with nowhere to play.
Hey, Mr Sunshine,
please come back one day.
Hey, Mr Sunshine,
welcome back today.
The sky is blue and clear and bright,
the rain has gone away.
Now the kids can run outside
to laugh and sing and play.
Thanks, Mr Sunshine,
sure beats yesterday!
The waves roll in, cunning waves
and hungry;
the stone stacks wonder when
they too will fall.
Headlands brace themselves
against the wild tide,
and, in time, the ocean
will devour the shore.
Teacher’s note: The Twelve Apostles are limestone stacks off the shore near Port Campbell, Victoria. The harsh waves from the Southern Ocean slowly erode the soft limestone in the cliffs to form caves, which later become arches that eventually collapse leaving up to fifty-metre high stacks.
HOLIDAY RAIN
Rain’s back,
down it comes,
and now we’ve all got the glums.
Nothing to do, nothing at all,
just sit around and watch it fall.
Might as well be back at school –
NOT!
CRITTER JITTERS
My critter’s got the jitters
and he jives around like mad.
He’s made of wire, you wind him up
and he kind of makes you glad.
With crazy jerks and twirling twerks
he skitters round and round.
His clockwork heart winds quickly down
and makes a whirring sound.
But just last week I heard a squeak.
and before I even wound him,
my critter jittered out the door
and I never ever found him.
Silvery streaks of morning-time rain
puddling into the mud
reminds me of blueberry pancakes
and circular see-through parachutes.
Raindrops aren’t teardrops.
There’s no pointy tip.
Those free-falling globules
are blueberry round.
But if they meet-up
as they fall through the sky
a middle-sized raindrop
as-flat-as-a-pancake
might suddenly start to appear.
Bigger and larger and bulkier still
fast-falling raindrops
past pancake proportions
with stretch in the centre
and drag through the air.
For less than a second
becoming a dome
these small glassy parachutes
wobble then burst
to break into
blueberry droplets again.
Celia said: I was delighted to learn that raindrops make all these weird shapes as they fall to the ground. This year I hope to receive Your Poems about the wonders of water for the Science Rhymes website.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/how-raindrop-exploding-parachute
Australian Children’s Poetry 