These veranda days, they’re ok, you say.

Cloud drifting.

Mountains winking in the distance days.

Sometime in the future we will remember these moments!

You announce.

As seas rise, a world groans, underbelly shifts

Overwhelm all our doings, all our longings and dreaming.

What are you thinking?

You ask, with the wind chimes.

Sun glinting off the cliff face

High in the spongy, purple folds of the mountains.

Close now as clouds dissolve, momentarily.

Light fills the sky, a white flower, opening.

Nothing, I say, nothing!

As though I had perfected Meditation practice

A breeze flowing through my empty mind.

The truth is I am chasing words, the right words

To say how I love you, come what may

In veranda days and when you go away, but

It’s all been said before, a million songs

All just … wrong

Except for slightly melancholy melodies

Ironic, wistful phrasing.

In between times

A chord strikes.

Still I am tired of all the noise

Endless clever, clever

Talk, talk, talking

As though everyone was getting ready to proclaim

The latest, rehashed profundity

For TV crews or radio mics

Prompted by a hyped-up “Personality”

Fast and loud; visual, aural, hyperbole

Looking for the next new thing!

In between?

Endless patter, political spin.

Listen! Listen to the wind!

A rain storm riding in

Obliterating mountains

Devouring roads and farms

Flattening my shabby garden

Seedy vegetables and tired herbs.

Drenched by glorious, unfeeling Nature…

And gone again.

A thousand industrious spiders

Observe these lazy veranda days

Unperturbed by the raging rain

Cracking on corrugated roof.

We congregate, we lounge, we sigh

On the veranda of endless Sundays

A shy carpet snake and two stripy cats

Hunched down, watching but ready to strike or

Curled up, sleepy in subtropical humidity

We could all just be hoping for the afternoon breeze…

Or … a revelation.