The Andamooka Storm
The saltbush stirred in a sullen breeze
At the Coober Pedy Mine,
Where the ground was baked to a shallow crust
With the surface cracked, and lined,
For it hadn't rained for a seven month,
And the sky was clear and blue,
While a spirit crept from the Opal stone,
At Andamooka, too.
At Mintabie, the wind crept out
Of a hole in the sacred ground,
It swirled and it swept across the land
As the spirit scowled and frowned,
It formed a cone and it swept around
To the Andamooka side,
And joined with the Coober Pedy wind
Like a bridegroom to a bride.
The cone spread out three hundred miles,
It growled as it whirled in grace,
And the dust it stirred streamed skywards up
Like a funnel in outer space,
While the men below in the Opal Mines
Hid deep in the dugout's lair,
Lay flat on the floor and held their ears
From the scream of the storm out there!
While less than a hundred miles away
In the depths of a grim old ruin,
Sat a slip of a girl with a surly mouth
At a table, in the gloom,
For piled up high on the table lay
The fruits of her father's life,
The greens and the golds of the Opal stones
That he'd worked for, with his wife.
But the girl sat quite alone in there,
And could it be, she smiled,
These sacks of rocks, not the only things
That lay by the demon child,
For by her hand lay a hammer, stained
With the colour of earth and mud,
And something that glistened and dried on it,
The red of her parents' blood!
She strained and heaved at the sacks of rocks
And dragged them out to the car,
Then looked across at the mound of earth
That covered a gaping scar,
She dragged the last sack to the porch
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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