by JEREMY GADD
Here come the squalls,
obscuring and hiding all behind vertical wet walls.
Like shower curtains hung
from low slung clouds, sensuously oscillating
grey shades of spray
cut silent swathes across the breadth of the bay,
akin to gently swaying
dancers in a ballet or kimono clad geishas
subtly serving a feudal daimyo,
they swivel and swerve until, joining a
a queue and with cloud surging
in from the open sea, they swallow the view
and the bay disappears, momentarily
reappears until raindrops carried on the wind
splatter against the window
and, ending visibility, drench all outside.
Eventually, sated or exhausted,
the squalls subside and, as if swept aside
by an unseen hand, vision clears:
a rainbow rises, reaching skywards, arcs between
distant headlands, joining earth
to patches of blue sky in a rebirth that mystifies.
Botany Bay, Sydney