Faith of Our Fathers

The gully, a thurible
wafting bushfire smoke;
the smoke pungent, acrid.
Down in Ad-or-ation falling…
we used to sing…
this great sacrament Divine…
while the priest and his entourage filled the aisle
with the embroidered satin and pungent stink of godly things.
The smoke from scarlet-resined gums,
from purple-podded wattle,
from dry bracken and dogwood
cleaving to the towns down south
like burrs to an old grey blanket.
No one can tell where it’s coming from,
so thick and low-lying is the somnolent smoke.
We closet ourselves inside the house
while a million smoke-crazy midges
batter the windows.
At five minutes past ten, the rains begin,
staccato, percussive,
(a benediction!)
then fluid, a chrism,
a million small, finite heavens
sliding on the roof.
Falling, bouncing off,
making runnels in the corrugations,
on and on,
steady and strong,
cleansing the air.
I bring the washing indoors.
It is flecked with white ash
the size of the mosquitoes that
lazily, slothfully,
patrol us in the night.
The rain falls,
softening sometimes…
but on and on it falls,
dousing the terrible flames
we cannot even see.