The drizzling sky was gray, ominous
They were young tourists
It was days
The town searched long hard down-river
Two weeks later
Rarely will the red-center
as the couple crossed the Todd river causeway
unaware of the distended ferocity
surging swiftly nearer, towards them
down from the hills.
their Holden Ute’s wheels, pushing slowly
through the low waters
its dirty-white froth an ancient warning.
Suddenly, all too real
a rabid wall of water and debris,
six feet high struck.
The couple’s Ute swiftly swept away.
before the rivers power subsided,
and the Ute found wedged eight feet
up a gum tree, twisted in the branches.
over thirty miles along the banks,
from the Alice Springs causeway
and their bodies were never found.
white sands were bone-dry
ghost gums stark in the sandy bed.
The midday sun scorching hot, the long dry
drought ended.
give up its concealed secrets,
and perhaps it never will
perhaps that is what the desert-river
had in mind.