Weather and Season Song

 

in this Cape of Storms

waves rear on hind legs

like polar bears

slashing the sky.

gale wind drives rain

parallel to the earth

through the vineyard,

splitting the oak,

flooding the Flats,

cracking the sea wall

like an egg shell.

 

sweating dog summers

pant and howl in the face

of a fynbos fire

that chokes the air

and hurls pine cone

grenades at houses

and sears the mountain

coal-mine black.

sudden summer rain rots crops.

 

all seasons in a day -

nothing new, we say

to this western Cape.

yet where are

the in-between seasons

when the earth tilts

with the sun mild

on Cancer or Capricorn?

 

somebody has flicked the

random scramble CD switch.

the weather and seasons

out of sync, no longer

sing in four part harmony

the cycle song of creation -

spring summer autumn winter -

ordered and measured

in tones and moods

as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

 

and is that somebody us?

 


Poems by Dorian Haarhoff