by Karyn B Jules

Created on: November 23, 2010

Resilience ...

Random flecks of azure sky ripple
through an abstract living canopy
reflected in muddy shades of flood water rising.

A picturesque scene that belies
the fickle nature
of this country's drought ridden interior.
No sympathetic landscape here. Adapt
or languish in self pity, defeated.

The majestic River Red Gum stands
in defiance, unblemished
by a decade long severance
from the life giving flow
now swelling once again
around its sturdy girth.

And as if to ridicule
nature's fastidious culling of the weak,
a pod of shrivelled seed capsules
flung long ago onto parched earth drifts
toward a moist, shady bank
where, as saplings,
they too will endure thirst,
famine, and flood...

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