Noon. Long arm of lower cloud
occludes the morning's chalky shell.
Under a dark pine, darkening yet,
great bulk of charcoal bull defies all color,
still in his moonless midnight,
but for ox tongue probing sparse grass.
An eerie silence...
Then wind blasts out.
I scurry in the whooshing,
taking in the washing, balling it all up,
struggle in ungainly haste,
while the cockatoos scold the gale,
drop your pink nighty on the couch lawn,
hook it up, toe to little finger, flee
pursued by drizzle.
The bull has lumbered off to
the lee of the garage,
the cockatoos, drenched to buggery,
have gone where they do.
Pygmy maple deals twenty lashes,
then gesticulates - a mad dictator
in the throes of fate,
long deferred and overdue.
Rain intermits; stoic trees must ballet on,
rags of shrubs, their rages likewise.
.................
The pygmy tree put me in mind of the evil old fool dictator Bashir in Sudan, whacking the air with his stick to encourage the forces of repression.
