GOOSE FEATHERS

First published in ?

Not the wall-to-wall yellow
we’d been led to expect
the sky goose-feather grey
laden with the weight
of an unspent sun lolling
back against the hills,
the air thick, humid, heavy.

Trees and bushes, leaves
brittle, ash-grey in sympathy
stand parched, sun-scorched,
exhausted and breathless,
an occasional bougainvillaea
the only blink of colour
in a goose-grey landscape.

The mountains, summits
haunted by ash-grey cloud,
mourn blackened brushwood
ravaged by summer fires.
A cinder-black tree stands guard,
bleak as graffiti scrawled
on a newly-painted wall.

Geese in their v-flight
having long-since escaped
to cooler summer skies
leave us to grey Syrian
sand-storms goose-stepping
across mountain tops, feathers
falling grey on to grey.