David Eggleton
The Weather Bomb
February began with firewatch skies,
a glare that flared off of hot metal cans,
gangs of lawn-mowers chanting mantras,
and an anticyclone calm which lasted for days.
Then came a sky that swelled like sludge.
Slowly, as if lockjawed, on the bludge,
rain fronted up just to lair about,
before turning whirling dervish on Valentine’s Day.
All night the storm bustled, strong as a haka.
Dawn sobbed out stories of baby raindrops,
backpacked in from the Tasman Sea blast zone,
only to thump down hard on Wellington.
{first stanzas of long poem by New Zealand poet David Eggleton}