David Chadwick

Heavy Rain

​

When it began, we welcomed it.

We’d been parched for so long,

we were pleased that the dust

had finally been damped down.

 

It started as light drizzle.

I remember enjoying the coolness

on my face and bare arms.

I opened my mouth and let it fall straight in.

 

But then it became more persistent,

drumming on the roof, overflowing the gutter,

running across the path, collecting in puddles,

turning eveything to mud.

 

Day after day, rain, rain, rain,

it just kept falling, never letting up.

People began complaining.

It was beyond a joke.

 

But the ducks liked it.

A bunch of them settled into the pond

that formed in the bottom paddock,

quacking their approval.

 

After a week it got really depressing.

The races were postponed

and the end-of-term school picnic

was cancelled. The kids were really upset.

 

After two weeks, people were getting worried.

There were slips and washouts,

streams burst there banks,

rivers ran through the CBD.

 

It didn’t bother the ducks though.

They sailed in and out of the hedges,

twirling in the eddies along the edges

of the trampoline on the back lawn.

 

Getting around became difficult.

Civil defence said not to travel

unless it was absolutely necessary.

We were told to stay home and listen to our radios.

 

All the time it just kept on raining

and the water kept rising.

Soon it was advancing up the path

and lapping around the doorstep.

​

I made some sandbags

but they didn’t help much.

Soon water was flowing through the lounge.

We carried some food and the television upstairs.

 

The pond became a lake.

The lake joined to other lakes.

The fields disappeared.

I saw a dead cow float by.

 

The ducks were ecstatic!

I saw them bobbing along in the current,

nibbling the tops of any fruit trees

that were still visible above the water.

 

After a month the radio went dead.

We climbed up onto the roof.

We thought we could see hilltops in the distance,

so we made a raft from some bits of furniture and set sail

​

We made slow progress.

I was rowing and my wife was baling,

but the rain was so heavy

it was hard to see where we were going.

 

The ducks paddled beside us, looking serious.

When we got to where we thought we’d seen the hills,

there was nothing – either we had missed them

or they were submerged by then.

 

I saw a boat in the distance, but it was sailing away from us.

A couple of the ducks took off after it. 

They landed on the deck

just before it disappeared over the horizon.