In between Times

© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge, 2010

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 with ironic, wistful phrasing.
In between times, a chord strikes.

Still I am tired of all the noise, endless clever talk, talk, talking
as though everyone was getting ready to proclaim
the latest, rehashed profundity for TV crews or radio mikes
prompted by a hyped up Personality, fast and loud
visual, aural, hyperbole looking for a new story.
In between, endless patter and political spin.

Listen! listen to the wind! A rain storm riding in
obliterating the 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
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 for a revelation.