Johnson, Mike

leaf torn and storm

In memory of the late, great planet earth

1. for many days the wind blew… and blew
2. huffed and puffed at the doors
3. at the windows at the roof at
4. the foundations
5. like the wolf in The Three Little Pigs
6.  
7. ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come iiinnnn…’
8.  
9. with the wind came a great bulk of sand to pile up
10. pile up, pile up, pile up, pile up
11. whispering against the vertical axis
12. against every available smile, every fruitless prayer or easy evasion,
13. every fairy-tale dream, every house of straw and sticks
14. tempering corners with an insidious softness
15. and sifting down from eaves and ceilings, like the past itself,
16. the history of the world, Virgil’s guided tour
17. of extreme weather events in 3D, in real time
18.  
19. Little pig, little pig…
20.  
21. walls, streets, fences, roads and distances
22. all vanish
23. into the general, implacable undulation –
24. sometimes it is quiet, constant and forever,
25. or quick and violent,
26. but always it moans like a martyr
27. from a simple rustle to a chainsaw roar
28. always it is the wind, nothing more
29. and always it cries in our broken sleep
30.  
31. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down
32.  
33. as patches of air boil with memory
34. and the echo of warrior voices
35. curtains of sand drift with eerie, sinuous slowness
36. across the streets and over the houses as if they were women
37. on their way home after a hard day’s work –
38. pieces of kelp walk erect, as if possessed of skeletons
39. lumps of tussock grass do
40. tumbleweed somersaults like circus performers
41. spiders surf the air with grim equanimity –
42. bits of paper, a love letter to Beatrice,
43. family photographs whirling like confetti,
44. a sock biting its own tail, a floppy doll spinning
45. spread-eagled limbs, a pair of trousers racing
46. helter-skelter down the road with
47. legs of wind
48.  
49. over the garden whirligigs are doing a
50. potato and carrot dance
51. to the sound of pan pipes and maypole music
52. while
53. a tricycle with only one wheel
54. limps in circular memory,
55. while
56. lumps of timber do dangerous back flips
57. while
58. a piece of rusty corrugated iron revolves like a roulette wheel
59. while
60. in the houses of money where the odds are running
61. and in the houses of the dead, where the odds have run out
62. the corpses are set walking into the good night
63. in search of collateral and a handy bunker
64.  
65. Little pig, little pig…
66.  
67. there are dreamy shards of glass in motion
68. like, she said, everybody’s dreams all mixed up
69. flying about in the real world, like, she said,
70. sweeping out the house until our brooms runs out of faith
71. until only our feet can dream,
72. until our bodies shake, oh how they shaky-shake-shake,
73. in the stinging air
74. air opaque with stinging sand
75. houses buried, uncovered and reburied at whim –
76. watch how it all vanishes
77. re-appears
78. and vanishes again –
79.  
80. the widow sits alone, still and silent
81. and watches the wind unbury and bury her husband,
82. scouring his grave clean and filling it up
83. with the silly rhymes of children
84. dressing and undressing his memory –
85. this is what the wind brings, grief and apparitions
86.  
87. when will it be over, we ask our icons,
88. while our children turn restless in their sleep
89. dreaming of wolves and houses made of brick
90. when will our journey be over
91. are we there yet?