Thursday, January 5, 2012

Storm Season on the Sunshine Coast

  The Storm 
Against the stone breakwater,
Only an ominous lapping,
While the wind whines overhead,
Coming down from the mountain,
Whistling between the arbors, the winding terraces;
A thin whine of wires, a rattling and flapping of leaves,
And the small street-lamp swinging and slamming against
the lamp pole.

Where have the people gone?
There is one light on the mountain.

Along the sea-wall, a steady sloshing of the swell,
The waves not yet high, but even,
Coming closer and closer upon each other;
A fine fume of rain driving in from the sea,
Riddling the sand, like a wide spray of buckshot,
The wind from the sea and the wind from the mountain contending,
Flicking the foam from the whitecaps straight upward into the darkness.

A time to go home!
And a child's dirty shift billows upward out of an alley,
A cat runs from the wind as we do,
Between the whitening trees, up Santa Lucia,
Where the heavy door unlocks,
And our breath comes more easy
Then a crack of thunder, and the black rain runs over us, over
The flat-roofed houses, coming down in gusts, beating
The walls, the slatted windows, driving
The last watcher indoors, moving the cardplayers closer
To their cards, their anisette.
 
 We creep to our bed, and its straw mattress.
We wait; we listen.
The storm lulls off, then redoubles,
Bending the trees half-way down to the ground,
Shaking loose the last wizened oranges in the orchard,
Flattening the limber carnations.
 
  A spider eases himself down from a swaying light-bulb,
Running over the coverlet, down under the iron bedstead.
Water roars into the cistern.


  We lie closer on the gritty pillow,
Breathing heavily, hoping
For the great last leap of the wave over the breakwater,
The flat boom on the beach of the towering sea-swell,
The sudden shudder as the jutting sea-cliff collapses,
And the hurricane drives the dead straw into the living pine-tree. 
The Storm by Theodore Roethke
 
Susan's almost swept out to sea adventure. 


 Storm season has arrived on the not so sunny Sunshine Coast...
 and I am L o v i n g every minute of it!

Cheers, Soaking Wet Susan

5 comments:

Lori Ann Corelis said...

Susan,
Beautiful photos . .. if a little ominous!
So happy you are back to blogging! And creating!

L

WoolenSails said...

Wonderful post and I enjoyed reading it.
We haven't gotten much this year, yet, so waiting since I am sure they will come.

Debbie

Kays Kids said...

Keep safe.
Hugs
Kay

Lorraine Young Pottery said...

Your words took me there, to the wind and the water.

I think a cup of hot chocolate would be good!

HUGS
Lorraine

jerilanders said...

I wish I could write like that! Fantastic. I felt like a sailor in the midst of a storm at sea.
I think storms can be invigorating and wonderful, also a bit scary... in an exciting sort of way.

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