Visitations

My son visited from cold Melbourne

for the first part of his holiday.

We turned on drizzling rain.

Then he went up to the Gold Coast

to laze on Main Beach with a book.

He enjoyed some sparse, weak sun.

Now of course, he’s back home

and here we have warmth

every day, the mountains clear,

the sky wide and cloudless,

the river sparkling and the ocean

a shimmering vista of deepest blue.

Last Christmas my younger stepson,

also from Melbourne, came.

We said he brought the sun.

It was a hard year, that one. How gladly

we anticipated sweet summer.

He left. Then came the non-stop rain.

The sudden flooding drowned whole towns

and half a city, just a little north of here. Now

in this perfect Spring, we breathe in, and wait.

30 poems in 30 Days: 14, A change in the weather