'Another Rainbow' - Anthology

The summer brought

a rainbow of a different kind...

When sadness filled our heart

and fear fuel’d our mind.

When the air turned orange

and the hills glowed red,

not certain where

each night we

might lay a weary head.

When the water ran brown

as the sky rained ash,

the bags at the door

all ready for the dash.

Would we wait or would we go

and another bag pack?...

And soon another shade

as the pool turned black.

The only blue was in the smoke,

so rarely in the sky.

Would the colours ever come again

or fade away and die?

Then I looked through my window

and saw it all so clear

in the colours of Creation.

It filled my heart with cheer.

There is a palette which

disaster will not ever dim,

in the plumage of our bird life;

in a little budding rose bush,

despite all, still looking trim.

There is the smallest patch of blue

in that sky eternal,

ever growing and expanding

defiantly shining through.

And defiant too, tiny shoots of green

in the longest drought we’ve ever seen,

whispering the hope,

after just a splash of rain

that the rainbow won’t forget us.

She will return again!

While COVID-19 has not had the devastating effect on me as on so many others, particularly those of you that reside in Victoria, the beginning of the year was my testing time!

I live in The Snowy Mountains region of NSW on the Monaro High Plain. The uncertainty of bushfire was and is my 2020.

I wrote this piece when I saw the first glimmer of hope that all would return to normal.  Perhaps it might also be appropriate to Victoria.

Helen Brockway Wilson 

Class of 1963