Today’s poem, on Day 579 of the daily poems, is a dramatic tale of summer gales. Our poet Colin Pink has given a stirring description of a storm at sea; no doubt it was not written with any political overtone, but on this morning, seeing the results of yesterday’s General Election, we can appreciate the metaphor of the rain landing on the canvas like blows from a cat-of-nine …
Summer gales Sennen Cove.
Summer gales turn our tent into a drunken boat;
the canvas yaws, riding gusts that pull it about
like toddlers fighting over a toy, until I think
we’ll surely sink, hull shredded, and crawl out
from under flapping waves of damp canvas.
We’re battered senseless by the storm’s invisible
blows whose racket is unrelenting, preventing
sleep or comfort with its all night club-clubbing.
The radio clings to a thin signal, rising and fading,
offering sips of orchestral succour while the rain
lands on the canvas like blows from a cat-of-nine;
it’s enough to make us yelp and by the third day
we begin to take it personal, start to believe some
obscure nature God, offended by our unwitting
trespass, is out to teach us a lesson we won’t forget.
Colin Pink
from Colin Pink Wreck of the Jeanne Gougy, published
by Paekakariki Press 2021