severe weather warnings
always come just as you have something nice planned/
thunderstorms a house-sized slip heavy rain causing localised
areas of surface flooding the grounds and soil will be sodden nil
visibility chains essential care required snow and black ice plus
low avalanche hazard/ the sheep were loaded into a cargo net and
flown out by helicopter/ the Desert Road is closed/ showers have
left the Rimutakas slippery and icy/ there will be a cold snap a
disturbed westerly flow a sudden southerly change gusts and gales/
we like our weather in New Zealand gives us something to talk
about flooding on the West Coast and Aucklanders are likely to
get drenched later today
This prose poem is in honour of the weather over the weekend, which was pretty awful and made early autumn feel like the depths of winter. I love this poem - as someone or other once said on The Simpsons, it's funny cos it's true. Like many New Zealanders, I find myself rather obsessed with the weather, despite my intentions of being a more interesting person than that.
This poem is from The Cheese and Onion Sandwich and other New Zealand Icons: Prose Poems, by Vivienne Plumb. Vivienne herself will soon be joining us Wellingtonians again - she is going to be this year's New Zealand Randall Cottage fellow from the middle of the year, where she will work on a new novel.
You can check out all the other Tuesday Poems via the hub blog: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/
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5 comments:
Love the image of the sheep lifted out in cargo nets, Helen - we certainly have our priorities in check!
Thanks for posting this Helen. it's very apt and funny. I think of the weather forecast, espec on tele, as a soap opera. Cheers Helen
Thanks Elizabeth and Helen!
So many of the Cheese and Onion Sandwich poems make me laugh - this is one of them. Viv Plumb is so funny.
And Helen, I read Abstract Internal Furniture online after our sewing bee! It's so great.
just great - as per
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