Tuesday poems: [Mellow fruitfulness]
April 10, 2012
light slanting blinded
sun swoons into evening
winter comes to call
looks good: isn't.
winter cold as Karenin
clicking hard knuckles of frost
please take me to your railway
Yes, welcome to the wonderful city of Canberra, cold little capital town in a warm country. It was a balmy four degrees celsius this morning, and the leaves are falling from the trees in an icy wind. Just lovely. People go around in beanies and scarves saying ‘It’s a bit nippy, isn’t it?’ until you want a giant crab to attack them and cut off their blue fingers and red noses. Why, oh why, was Australia’s capital put here, rather than somewhere warm?
‘Autumn is so lovely.’ Thus spake the idiot at the shops this morning. No it’s not. Autumn is a disgusting harbinger of Winter, which lasts about nine months in Canberra, giving birth to a too short Summer after a dwarf Spring. Then comes another blood-red Autumn. And you walk around hallucinating about Queensland. (Ignoring the beauty of the native parrots and the huge flocks of cockatoos, nestled, perversely, in the introduced deciduous trees.)
Now, for a really lovely unfolding global birthday poem, written in a much more generous spirit than my little anti-Canberra rant, please click this feather, which has fallen onto the screen like a black Autumn leaf! Only birdier.
PS Cottier 
I like both of these, but the second one is wonderful! Very Russian – perhaps Canberra needs a Kremlin?
Canberra is a Kremlin, Tim. Without the groovy architecture. And with Kevin Rudd lurking instead of V. Putin. (Penelope returns happy from her reading at The Gods, and finds it hard to conjure up her earlier negativity. But she tries.)
Ah, yes, I love the knuckles of frost – a powerful image. It certainly rings of Russia, desperation, coercion and all such things.
Thank you Elizabeth. Just doing my bit for Canberra tourism!
Brrr…Lovely humour…my sympathies re the temp but it certainly sharpens the mind.if yours is an example. Perhaps that’s why Canberra is in a cold place ..
Keeps the politicians on their toes.Stay warm:-)
Seriously, I think they did look at climate as one factor in choosing the location, lest we all go a bit tropical. And it had to be inland, in case we were invaded. And as most commonly known, not in Sydney or Melbourne. So it really is a city founded on not being somewhere else.
Thanks for your thoughts…From another cold place.
It was a bit chilly, even had the heat on. 🙂
Hello to another Canberran
You are given to understatement, methinks…It may well keep you sane during Winter.
Autumn is my favourite time in Canberra, it’s the winter when I’ll be a bit more vocal about the chill