What are they talking about? It must be a complaint. They are tired of dripping, their sodden roots ache with the cold, their limbs shudder as though they would snap. We are all short of temper. But there must be patience. The rain will be hanging about for a few more days, and the nights will be chilled longer.
But there will be sun eventually, and I'll be able to tell one day from another until the persistent light makes them monotonous again. For now I could do without that drumming on the window.
Sunday Verse
Suburban Lovers
by Bruce Dawe
Every morning they hold hands
on the fleet diesel that interprets them
like music on a roller-piano as they move
over the rhythmic rails. Her thoughts lie
kitten-curled in his while the slats of living
racket past them, back-yards greying
with knowledge, embankments blazoned
with pig-face whose hardihood
be theirs, mantling with pugnacious flowers
stratas of clay, blank sandstone, sustaining them
against years' seepage, rain's intolerance.
Each evening they cross the line
while the boom-gate's slender arms constrain
the lines of waiting cars.
Stars now have flown up out of the east.
They halt at her gate. Next-door's children
scatter past, laughing. They smile. The moon,
calm as a seashore, raises its pale face.
Their hands dance in the breeze blowing
from a hundred perfumed gardens. On the cliff of kissing
they know this stillness come down upon them like a cone.
All day it has been suspended there, above their heads.