They say the weather’s changing, tropics moving,
loose heat banging on the greenhouse roof,
whirlwinds in the western suburbs,
as we are blown out to sea on the hot air
of an 100% pure clean and green branding campaign,
marooned in the shimmer of an Indian summer.

A long dry, twenty days until precipitation for the nation,
a soothsayers educated guess by balancing probabilities
on the head of a random isobar –
translation is a hill cracked like a split lip,
and scabby grass gone to stalk and umber
factoring in the account deficit and the dairy dividend,
the clover is over is what the joint is trying to tell us.

A rug of fog clamps on the northern hills,
rising damp from the Pacific Basin
leaving the transmitter tower
a red periscope poking out to the blue evening
that warms the washing dry and tempers even
and contains the latency of a distant threat.