Poem 314

We love to in hindsight think we knew what was coming, to somehow negate our generalised human horror at the indigestible fact that actually shit just happens, unexpected out of the blue and shockingly out of our control (and animals are no more sensitive or wiser than us in this respect) … ‘earthquake weather’ is popularly supposed to be hot, humid, oppressively or eerily still … in fact there is no correlation between climatic conditions and seismic activity …

( I like the rhyme of plates/wait/grate and the image of hot days as golden raking fire on fields … )

Earthquake Weather

never existed
                             the plates won't wait
                             to grate another metre
or cause this still heat
this brass light
                             throwing backward shadows
as we approach
some massive event

wasn't there war weather
the last summers of peace
invariably long hot
            golden raking fire
on the fields

                         this is a climate of memory
                         the desire for presentiment
when a life splits
without ceremony off its piles
fracturing yesterday away
                                                      forever

the birds sing right up to the moment
the earth gapes down
their tree
                  then are so quiet
                  even they believe
                  they saw it
                                       coming