A long hot summer

The unrelenting sun shimmered into another day, as its stealthy rays stretched from the eastern horizon pink & yellow across a cloudless sky. The park was becoming even more dry & dusty with only glimpses of green blades of grass struggling to survive the summer's fiercesome hold. The tall native trees drooped from lack of water, their hardiness being severely tested. Some of the shrubs at the edge of the park have turned brown & are dying, no longer holding out for life giving moisture. Deep cracks have appeared on the cricket pitch, widening with each day as the shimmering heat rises above the ground & into the next day. On the bike path the strong summer sun cracks open the bituman, strung out for meters & the depth of the spaces increase to resemble that which splits open  during an earthquake. Concrete breaks & falls apart with increasing ease, & the earth shrinks under the intensity of continuing cloudless skies.
The garden shrivels & the plants constantly droop for lack of rain, until a day dawns with thick dark clouds building from the south west horizon. Lightning flashes in the distance increasing the bushfires consuming the mountains & forests with rapidity as the fires tear up the slopes & ravish the countryside. Thunder rumbles as it approaches, & the brief raindrops start falling. Rain on dry ground smells with  significant freshness as it hits the dusty moisture sapped ground, hard as concrete. The tentative drops slow & die away altogether, disappearing over to the hills, never to return. The strong summer sun burns down with continuous ferocity & the heat increases with each struggling day.