Crouching on the roof of your neighbour's garage that slopes
over the garden and your mother's rosery, we watch a squall
drub and clobber the Magalliesberg foothills from far away.

In the suburbs though, it is a dumb-show. We count
the long seconds between flash and wallop and try
to remember the formula to link sight and sound by distance.

What we see is the storm, small and entire in the wide sky and neatly
defined between two tilted parallels. As they open up nearer,
we will smell them cleanly.We will see through rain-shade.

Things will be darker, not dimmer.When it comes to us,
we will be inside, safely, until, afterwards, we clear the garden table
and find the wine-glasses brimmed and level.

Knowing where everything goes

It is when a low sky drains down the valley towards
December; under rough thatch that drips what it doesn't let in
...