The westerly that has flowed,
cooling and caressing,
lulling us through the small hours,
has warmed already,
heated by its passage
across the already baking land.
I should close the windows,
lower the blinds, to
exclude the gathering heat.
But the kookaburras are circling,
chuckling each to each,
marking their territory with hilarity.
The westerly is still welcome,
while it carries their song.
I wrote a lot of poems last summer that I never posted, many because they were about the bushfires. It takes me a while to process stressful experiences, to be ready to post about them. This isn’t about the fires, but was in the archives amongst them. This was written in one of the heat waves, when it was 30C + (that’s 86F to my American readers) by 0900 (9am), and more than 40C (104F) by mid-afternoon. This year it’s been very mild… so far…
anotherKate 
Did you get any of that crazy hail I heard about?
No, nothing. I think that was further north – northern NSW has had some flooding as well and a king tide washing away Byron Bay. We didn’t even get any rain.
Wow! No one told me about Byron Bay. Looks like I need to do some reading.
It’s not houses falling into the sea erosion. Yet. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-18/nsw-coastal-erosion-branded-a-national-emergency/12990962
Not quite sure why losing Byron Bay would be a national emergency anyway… 😀
No doesn’t seem like much of an emergency at all 😂
Very nice poem. I get you about processing thoughts and feeling before they can coalesce into a poem. Some of my most recent poems took me 40 even almost 50 years to write. A long incubation!
Thanks Roger.
For me it’s partly incubation, and also being ready to post. I think I should often allow a longer incubation period. 🙂
Ah, heat. Hope the summer let’s you all rest. We had a gentle summer that then exploded. Sigh.
Bushfires for you too?
We’re having a mild and gentle a summer so far. More so because of COVID – no fireworks, no gatherings.
So much of the west coast burned from the end of August to sometime in October. Parts of the old growth forest I will never see again, nor will it return with the drying climate. I hurt to remember.
Yeah, I know how you feel. It’s known as the “black summer” now in Aus, with so much burnt. Driving through some of the burnt areas months later was devastating.
We’re in the bush, and our dam was dry, so we had bags and the caravan ready packed to go all summer. So good to have a cool summer and lots of water this year.
🥰