FIRE WEATHER

FIRE WEATHER

Ever-ceaseless sun is parching
Pasture grass on browning hills.
Heat gives topic to tired talk,
Day is blazing silent haze.

Afterthoughts of white cloud contrast
With the brilliancy of blue:
Day's dome bathing all in thirsting
Radiance that drinks earth dry.

Here is heat that holds the landscape
In a sorcery of glare;
Like a sulphured dragon breathing
Fire through the trembling air.

Even butcher birds and magpies
Hide in fainting leaves to shelter
In solicitude of shadow,
Beaks slight-parted, softly-panting.

Now time sweats. And even colours
Burn upon the vision, flame,
Hazed in day's intensity,
Focused in a crystal furnace.

Yellowed grasses wither back
To dry-fisssured ground which bakes
To a hot and lifeless dust.
Creeks and dams sink towards the earth.

Hazed with heat, eyes glazed with glare,
Restlessly we scan the rim
Of our sight for rain's relief,
For release from fire weather.

For tranquillity is coolness,
And detachment from sense flame;
Fire weather's fire sermon:
All the world seems burning, burning.