It’s just a town, a honeymooners’ choice
With shady streets, a pleasant mountain spot
And locals greet with sanguinary voice,
“How are ya mate? It sure is bloody hot”.
‘Tis forty plus degrees, the fifth in row,
Oppressive sun and enervating heat,
As shrivelled leaves and rubbish ever blow
On stirring wind that blusters through the street.
A heavy pall, expectant, shrouds the sky
And worried faces wear a look of doubt.
The radio repeats its warning cry
Activate your fire plan, stay in or get on out.
A whisp of smoke ascends the distant view.
Throughout the town, an all-pervading screech,
The fire siren sends its cadence true
To wrench the hearts of those within its reach.
The gusting gale grows stronger by the hour,
As smell of smoke and fall of burning ash
Give warning of the fire’s growing power.
Stay and fight or make a frenzied dash.
The rumble from the forest gathers might.
The water bombers clatter overhead,
And smoke now covers everything in sight;
The sky above takes on a tinge of red.
The residents are frantic to prepare
And pack their treasures into 4x4’s.
They open paddock gates, take every care,
Shut windows, fill up spouts and lock all doors.
The twinkling orange flash of fire’s fury
Emerges in the valley, near at hand.
Then like the rolling roar of huge express,
Crescendo-like it thunders cross the land.
Consuming all with fiendish, noisome glee,
Like banshee, howling bent on razing all,
It swallows, chars, destroys with searing heat
And hurtles on in frenzied search for more.
A chimney stack or two stand lone and grim.
A crumbled heap of ash is all that’s left.
Collapsed the corrugated sheets of tin,
A tank, a lone brick wall that stands bereft.
The holocaust has passed and all is still.
A letter box, awry, a silent sentinel,
And blackened trees, denuded, mark the hill
Where once there stood the town of Marysville.
As months pass by the trees will burst away,
The hills resume their vestiges of green,
The rebuilt town will rise from ashes grey,
But grief remains and scars that can’t be seen.
© George N. Fordham