Storm Over Sydney by John Trantner

It has been storming here this afternoon. My favourite poem came to mind and I thought I would share it with you. Beare Park, Elizabeth Bay is the park referred to.




Blustering over the Harbour,brilliant rain
slaps and blathers at the rusty Bridge.
I dodge for cover as the sky turns green.
Cars wobble and skid on William Street
hot with mechanical rage.

Lightning strikes twice: a blinding white
crack! and the echo whacks the concrete.
I fossick and dawdle in the supermarket aisles
safely underground, among the paper plates
and the jars of honey.

The thunder has trundled a thousand miles
and boiled the Pacific black to bother us all,
and it's dull and sick from its long journey.
Now I'm trying to wheel a crook trolley
from the shopping mall.

the chrome's rusty and a bent wheel clanks.
It's the season of ruby cellophane and holly;
the gutters are chock -full of summer hail
fresh frozen and smashed into chunks.
At the cafe I doze

in a corner,read the messages and the mail,
and unwrap the book I've bought. It's old,old:
the writer's fervour whispering down the years,
epigrams elaborating a narrative-
as though such fragments could!

On schedule, the weather grumbles and raves
westwards over the suburbs. I'm happy; I know
a little park where I can park the car,
sit on a wet bench and watch the waves
fume in the amethyst air.