All afternoon the sky hung low and yellow,

heavy as a wet towel, close and still.

The dog lay panting in the laundry doorway,

the magpies stopped their singing on the hill.

Mum shut the windows, took the washing in,

and stacked the towels, and said she didn't care,

but twice I saw her stop beside the window

to watch the sky and push away her hair.

The air was thick. The flyscreen didn't flutter.

The cattle stood like statues by the dam.

Dad leaned against the ute and squinted westward.

'She's coming,' he said quietly. 'Tie the gate, Sam.'

I heard it first — a grumble, far and lazy,

like furniture being dragged across a floor.

Then the gum trees shivered, every leaf turned over,

and the dust came rolling up the road before.

The first drops hit the tin roof like thrown pebbles,

slow and fat, a dozen, then a score,

and then the sky unzipped itself completely

and the whole world was a single silver roar.

We stood beneath the verandah, soaked and laughing,

as water gushed in ribbons down the track.

The dry creek bed that hadn't run since April

woke up and stretched and found its voice came back.

The dog went mad. She barked at every raindrop,

then stood with both front paws up on the rail

and lifted up her nose to drink the thunder

and shook herself and sprayed us with her tail.

By dinner it had passed. The air smelt mended,

of wet earth, eucalyptus, cooling tin.

The frogs began a concert in the paddock

and the cattle, dripping, slowly wandered in.

Dad checked the gauge: twenty-six millimetres.

He wrote it in the book beside the door.

'That'll do,' he said, and I knew what he meant was:

We'll be right now. We'll be right. We won't need more.

That night I lay and listened to the gutters

still ticking, and the frogs, and far away

the creek still talking to itself in darkness,

and knew the farm would turn green by Saturday.