Poetry by Clare Best

I began work on this poem last July, when I visited Woodlands in the grip of drought. This year, the irrigators may be needed much sooner. After the driest April for centuries, many of the crops at Woodlands have slowed, and the ground is cracked and dusty. Here is my song for rain. May it come naturally.

Rainmaker

Over rusty stripes of beetroot stalks
the metal dragon stretches
scaffold wings against a china sky;
potato and beet need this strange song

the blue underground hum
as water comes, streams whistling
down aluminium pipes, a crescendo of rain
spinning and falling.