Wheresoever went the way
Of Wycheproof's bright Summer day
Way back then, back then when wheat was King
With bountiful supply
You could hear the growers sigh.
As the tills began, abundantly, to ring.
With silos overflowing
And wheat trains ever growing
In Wycheproof, back then,
When wheat was King
With the young girls laughing happy
And the blokes all dressing snappy
Prosperity led Wycheproof, to sing.
But then an apprehension
When this "Climate Change", was mentioned,
Dismissed as merely "here-say" by all,
For "What is now has always been"
With life in Wycheproof, serene,
"What tragedy, could possibly, befall?"
Now Wycheproof is Mallee dry
Where wealthy men complain and cry
When hot northerlies whip topsoil to the wind
As it parachutes a million miles
Which is fine for Wimmera wheatmen's smiles,
Fine and dandy for the growers living there....
But for locals un-empowered,
Watching windblown topsoil scoured,
There's a seriousness in Wycheproof's despair.
No topsoil means ya can't grow wheat
And the shortened seasons growth, deplete,
Dust storms are primarily....THE FEAR!
Surmount successions mounting debt
And final deadlines... all unmet
Foreclosures ...are chewing up the cheer!
Wycheproof these days is still
No man nor beast on flat or hill,
The shops are looking derelict and closed
And the pub' though selling beer,
Is indisposed and rather queer
For there's no wheat.... and no joy fills the day.
Future's looking bleak
And it's getting hotter, so to speak,
in Wycheproof ... and ****** all to say.
M.
February 8 2021
As a kid, in the Mallee, I sowed countless filled wheat sacks year after year in the school holidays. Baking hot sun and the dry starchy smell of acres of freshly reaped wheat. Then a bustling wonderland and a great source of pocket money for a kid from the city....Now a drought stricken waste land. Low population, struggling wheat crops prosperity a thing of the past.
A clarion call for the future and the certainty of the calamity of advancing climate change.
M.