OUTSIDE THE LINE

I generally do not write in rhyming verse but sometimes push myself to do so, exploring new poetic forms. Outside the Line is an attempt at writing a Shakespearean Sonnet about Goyder's Line, near which we have often lived.

OUTSIDE THE LINE

The heat sprang up with the first trace of dawn,
rising from the horizon with the sun.
The farmer lifts his eyes to greet the morn
and craves for rain across his barren run.

 A hot wind stirs across the northern plain,
whipping the dust above the grazing herd
of his lean sheep feeding on hand-spread grain
brought from the south at prices quite absurd.

Clouds multiply. The wind veers to the west.
Thunder. Lightning. A fickle hope of rain.
But the farmer knows that just like the rest
the storm will pass, the dry fields will remain.

 He knows tomorrow will be hot and fine.
All his life he's farmed "outside the line".