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