Inside the Weather

Inside the Weather

Along the river
poplars dance gold
shadow with light
an ash burning claret

I walk slowly
saunter the morning,
in this now, each Midas’ fingerprint
daubs the sky with cadmium yellow

I’ve read cows
used to be deprived of water
fed mango leaves so their urine
was the colour of cadmium
so that artists could varnish their paintings
with sun, until animal liberationists
stepped in

for the first time
in a lifetime,
I am inside the frame
of witnessing weather
the mathematics of forecasts
the parlance of social interaction,

I sink into the loam of age,
my feet growing into the earth.

Gail Hennessy 2016