At least that wasn't a test on the level of the hurricanes off the Gulf
of Mexico, Max. But you caught the arrival & the pup's look.
I share an office too, with about 30 others. Luckily, few use it.
Doug
On 25-Oct-05, at 2:39 PM, cooee wrote:
> [on 26/10/05 1:04 AM, Douglas Barbour at [log in to unmask]
> wrote:
>
>> Ah, I'm emeritus now Max.
>
> A grand sound, Doug. Honorary Associate is me, and the office to be
> shared;
> library access wonderful...travel mostly a dream...
> Max
>
> And now a snap]
>
> A distant roaring in the dark and I half-woke to listen,
> thinking yes it’s coming this way from the north,
> a big wind that will test our trees -
>
> but we’ve already removed (at such expense!)
> the limb-shedding gums that overhung the glass.
>
> Louder faster and closer, the big wind signals
> heavy rain too, perhaps like the cloudburst
> that hovered that evil night not long back
> when rainwater cascaded inside causing panic,
> ruin, insurance claims and long-drawn-out repairs.
>
> It’s here and the heaviest rain is pounding the metal roof
> and the sloping glass - I peer up flinching -
> it’s hail now that clatters and bounces
> off and wants to break glass, but doesn’t.
>
> We still have electricity, and bright light falls
> now on the back terrace and garden. The hail’s
> piled white everywhere, falling heavily still,
> transforming all that greenness and no doubt
> stripping petals from all the spring blossom.
>
> Puppy and I open the back door and stare -
> the fall passes - it is a wonder,
> and his first hailstorm ever; mine?
> the biggest since myself a puppy
> and hail was one of many wonders.
> He pads out curiously, sniffs, hurries back in.
>
> Max Richards
> North Balwyn, Melbourne
> 6.30am, Wednesday 26 October 2005
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
The blank page
as merely an interval or
an intrusion. We could not rescue it
nor could we huddle, as if the page were
big enough.
Kathleen Fraser
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