This poem recalls a certain zeitgeist I detected during benign winter days spent in my adopted home town of Perth many years ago; lassitude, provincialism, an inclination towards fatalism, perhaps merely bourgeoise self-satisfaction. It did not survive the new century, needless to say.

Winter (Australia)

Come here & listen:

-  Winter -

slithering on grit-sand moved

by swathing waves, crests flick'd,

a throttled slough

of combed-back ocean swells

as the pines bend

on Cottesloe Beach - when gusts snarl,

rip at their needles,

spread cloaks of verdigris,

browning as the copper rain

runs through.

 

Grey haze covers any June day

between hardly moving

thin rags of cloud

in soft air;

cats' claws withdrawn

in rolled-out suburbs.

 

Idly pondering pale gardens,

eating oranges;

dissolving a little.

Waiting for muttered weather conversations

while unpicking knotted memories.

 

Hoping for wet, hissing

highways

& drumming rooftiles to exult in:

rain's not for thinking.

 

(Chris Hubbard, Perth 2018)