All Is Gone.

Mangroves tend down

Their arm-strong roots,

Like a reef wall against

Whatever sea may throw at shore.

But the mangroves are slowly dying,

Their dense mass a defence no more.

All is gone.

Before the wet, this town guts itself.

Those with a choice head south

And those without stay hidden away

Behind storm shutters, cyclone fences,

And the besser block belief we could

Never again come to grief.

All is gone.

Sure, we are all filtering

Through the grubby paws of Santa Claws,

Families and holidays reasons for leaving,

Just as we are untrusting of a sky with a history

Of violence, and a Bureau of Meteorology

Not known for their omniscience.

All is gone.

In this annual disappearing,

I hear the word whispered -

"Go," before the weather gets you.

But you've already been got, ceaselessly

Watching the radar for a tropical low

That might coalesce, might not - you never know.

All is gone.

Tales of Tracy slip from the dry-lipped:

Houses shredded, bombed flat suburbs, Xmas '74.

These and other visions of devastation

Haunt our air-conditioned dreams

As we hang on, weary and wary,

For the next BIG one.

All is gone.

  

© shaun patrick green 2017

Nursery Rhyme.

Did you tell your father?

Did you run to the door?

Did you pick up sticks?

Did you lie on the floor?

Did you hide in your safe place?

Did the monster get you?

Did your mother drink too much?

Did your daddy say "Boo!"?

Did you find a friend?

Did you sing a song?

Did the lady say "stop"

When the game went wrong?

How many numbers did you count?

How many colours can you see?

How many birds fly in the sky?

How many fish swim in the sea?

How many pills can your daddy take?

How many times can mummy yell?

How many bottles litter the bench?

Why do your parents say don't tell?

© shaun patrick green

She Remembers Light.

She remembers light

The way it is remembered

Filtered through trees

In the month of November

Her mother gathers wood

Winter approaching

Ice on the lake

The cold encroaching

She sews by firelight

Dolls for her nephews

They live in the next village

With soldiers and curfews

Her mother stirs soup

In a pot on the fire

Singing songs her mother sang

Of birds and wires

She will sleep

And dream of him

The blacksmith's boy

With the dimpled chin

Wake to morning

All the leaves gone

December in the arbour

The cold has won

© shaun patrick green