SYDNEY Lying on a beach in Sydney, scorched and sore in the dry heat, the sand burns my toes. I wander back to drizzly days in Leitrim, when I paddled in my wellingtons in puddles on the farm where I grew up. Here, rain seldom falls, and only in quick downpours. I long for soft days and misty rain, to moisten my face. -- Mary Guckian, "Perfume of the Soil," Swan Press, Dublin (1999)