and today, and today
cuckooo calls the spring
last week
today, sunday
our first life was lost,
in our small coastal town,
to the ocean’s rise.
on my phone,
on my screen,
on the front page of
the actual made of paper paper
a picture of a murky wave –
crashing the sea wall – heaving
taller than trees into the air on impact –
charging forward
a disturbed monstrous churning
in the foreground a family,
feet already wet,
run towards the camera,
small figures
faces arms hair eyes
trying to outrun the wave
this is not stock footage of a generic wave –
not an ai rendering of some future imperfect
this is the ocean – our ocean swallowing
a vast expanse of beach, breaching the old wall
to claim the shore and all that is built there.
this is not the whole picture
but a cropped version of the truth.
it does not show – out of respect
for the living and the dead –
the old woman running from a wave
we all knew was coming – is coming,
the old woman swept down the road
among the floating cars
and wheelie bins – swept away.
the old woman who died moments later.
this picture is all of us
running from a wave far bigger
than our collective living memory
allows us to imagine.
and even that is not the whole picture.
we live in a small town –
we live in the hills
behind and above
a small coastal town
like a spine like a snake
like a straight line of circuitry
on a microchip of a planet,
a road stretches through town –
stretches 2255 km
from cape town in the south west
along the coast
to the border in the east
before swinging north
to ermelo and the coal mines –
a long, long road
stringing us along
stringing us along
town by hamlet city town
this is an artery – a mainline –
the N2 that trucks goods and fuel
up and down the coast –
a crude drawing of
the edge on the indian ocean.
linking rich farmlands
and port and industry
making sure there is food
on the shelves, petrol in our tanks
and an economy tick tick
ticking over.
boom
last week today
sunday,
new moon wind driven
storm surge saw the N2 swamped –
vehicles halted clogged
stopped
while the ocean
made her voice heard.
built in the seventies
this road pins a
shifting dune and a migrating
river mouth, holding the ocean and river
still – halting their old exuberance,
their crazy tidal dance
their slow embrace –
holding them bridge pillar and
embankment for 50 years
last week today sunday –
their pounding thrashing music –
their wild lament and awe filled reunion
could be heard all the way up here
in the hills.
precarious is it not,
this life we lead
of roads and ports and atm’s
of money in banks and food on shelves,
grown shipped continent to continent
so we cannot hear anymore,
the moans of the hungry far away
above the snarling deaf
of the internal combustion engine
precarious is it not
hearing a music of ocean
we have forgotten how to dance to.
today sunday
and every chat and post
and forum tings and pings
notifying of storm warnings
issued by national weather services
more severe than any warning
ever issued before –
more severe than last sunday severe.
and all the while
the rain falls gentle
soaking gathering
day after day –
frogs sing a spring’s green
uprising and roots settle deep
and slake their thirst.
yesterday – sunday
the storm broke down the coast
unleashing wind and rain – pummeling
severing the N1 and N2 yet again –
alternative routes mud slid and swamped –
and lives lost
we are lost – knee deep
to a future we have no name for –
rescues, mop up operations – assessing damages –
food parcels swung precarious (again)
on lines across swollen rivers
to towns that no longer have bridges
and we are fumbling –
putting one foot in front of the other
hoping for solid ground.
on monday we hunker down –
waiting for what might come but does not.
on tuesday the sun rises in a clear sky
after a nights solid rain.
the small river
deep in the forest valley
tumbles rock face to pool
and sings
and today
and today
cuckoo calls the spring.
Linking to Open Link weekend 23 at Desperate Poets
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