Commenting
About The Weather
“Damn!” he said, “It sure is hot!”,
then looked at me as if expecting
some appreciative corroboration
of his insightful observation.
All I could think of to say was,
“What the fuck do you expect of South Texas
in August?”
Thought for a Sub-Zero Morning
One of the many things
that I disliked
about living on
a tropical island
was the absence
of autumn,
winter, and spring,
and the temperature range
being the same
every day,
rainy season and dry,
except during
typhoons.
…
What A Man’s Gotta Do
I don’t know why I was so spaced out that morning,
but I left for the dog exercise park
on a day characterised
by a disturbed westerly flow
having
forgotten to take my umbrella with me.
Although the sky was blue-dome when we left the car,
I knew that our chances of a dry, full-length ramble were slim,
and sure enough, a half an hour later,
as we were crossing the lawn toward the stick tree
I felt a gust of wind at my back,
turned, and saw a mass of black clouds
approaching rapidly
from the
southwest.
Without hesitation I started striding briskly directly back toward
the car,
the fox terrier following.
It started spitting as I descended the ramp past the boathouse,
then began raining for real after I’d strode
maybe twenty metres
along the riverside footpath.
I ran,
with a thudding, lumbering gait,
the last eighty metres of so
to the Swarbrick Landing car park
and the shelter
of my funky old Ford.
It was the first time I’d run in years.
Layers
One morning at the park in early April
I had to adjust the layering
of my outer garments
eight times in fifty minutes
as the sun seemed to be playing peek-a-boo with the clouds
and the breeze rose and fell.
For me that’s one of the more lovely things
about living where I live.
I like weather that does
something
and doesn’t just sit there.
Precipitative
Indifference
I do love rain,
as did my flowers, herbs, tomatoes, and jalapeños,
back when I cultivated them,
and rain on the roof is one of my favourite sounds,
but when it really pisses down
it did put a crimp on my ability
and inclination
to exercise my dog
when she was alive,
and also to exercise myself
with long, solitary walks
since her
demise.
The rain, of course,
doesn’t give a shit
one way or the other
about my attitude toward it.
Aguas
de Amazonia
One chilly, rainy morning,
with my wipers on and off
as I’d driven to the dog park,
I’d been listening
to a Brazilian ensemble called
Uakti
playing minimalist compositions
by Philip Glass
called Aguas de Amazonia
on mostly home-made percussion
instruments and flutes
made from whatever they’d had lying
around.
The river was up, but the rain
had lightened,
so we were able to make
a complete circuit of the park
–
albeit shorter than our usual
one
and no game of stick.
As I strode, with the aid of a
brolly,
along the surging, rising
river,
the somewhat complex last four
bars
that had been playing
before I’d switched off the
ignition
engulfed my consciousness
continuously
and guided my feet
in a magical combination
of mantra and marching music.
Music about the Amazon by the
rainy, rushing Waikato :
it worked.
Here it Comes
That
just-before-it-rains
grey-sky
thing
with
the high overcast,
decreasing
atmospheric pressure,
a
breeze picking up from the northwest,
and
the air dancing
with
negative ions –
that’s
when the weather
feels
best to me.
Remnants
of a Depression
I love rain,
but when the wispy remnants
of an early-summer
subtropical depression caught me out
on the way home from the 4-Square,
the droplets blowing onto my sleeves
despite my umbrella
and the air’s oppressive stickiness
had a telling effect
on my ageing body
and I spent
the rest of the day feeling unwell.
My plants loved it, though,
as did, apparently,
the neighbourhood birds,
who tucked into the birdseed in the feeder
on the wall of
my front patio.
How the neighbourhood cats,
who keep hoping to get lucky with the birds,
reacted to that wet warm front
I couldn’t say.
A
Cloudy Sunrise
The sunrise refracting through
clouds
during my morning walk
temporarily distracted me
from my sorrow, desperation,
and despair.
Clouds make everything so much
better.
When I returned home, however,
everything was the same.
Cloudy sunrises don’t last.
Vernal Indication
I’m not usually out after dark,
but when I did come home
after an evening performance
in late September
I crunched two snails underfoot
in the three steps
between my gate and my door,
without even looking down,
thereby convincing myself
that Spring had indeed arrived.
Unseasonal
Visits
I
wonder if
the
rare fly
that
comes in my open doorway
when
it’s well into autumn
does
so
because
it’s lonely,
or
don’t flies get lonely?
Hell
if I know.
Limits To Comprehension
Wind, rain, lightning, hail –
these I can understand.
Money, religion, egotistical power lust –
these make about as much sense to me
as wearing a double-breasted suit.
