The countryside around Mortlake is looking dry and brown <br />But the magpie's flute is echoing in the park of Mortlake Town <br />And in the paddocks parched for rain in the dry earth grass cannot grow <br />And it has been a year or even more since the dry creek last did flow <br />But life goes on in Mortlake Town despite the long dry spell <br />Though the Town traders financially worse off since the farmers are not doing well <br />And the sheep and cattle in the bare paddocks are losing weight and getting thin <br />In times of drought it seems sad to say for none there is a win <br />El nino not gone back to sea is still lurking around <br />And any rain that happens to fall the thirsty one sucks from the ground <br />The farmers for their hungry livestock are running out of hay <br />The heavy rains they pray for does not fall and 'tis in vain they pray, <br />The paddocks around Mortlake look bare and brown and dry <br />And there is not a rain cloud in the clear and blue Autumn sky.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mortlake-in-drought/
