WINDS OF CHANGE

Yesterday morning a low mist rose from the lake,
rolling quickly towards us, enveloping everything,
blanking out the world around us.
Isolating us.
Then a sudden shift in the wind, blowing gusts of hard rain
angling across the windows, chasing the mist, dispersing it
until it slinks back wraith-like, merging with the lake.
Heavy clouds crowd in from the north, blotting out the light.
Lashings of rain, swirling wind make the trees bow earthwards.
Everything suddenly sodden.
And then with another flip of Nature’s wrist,
A break in the clouds and for a glorious moment, the sun shines through.
A patch of blue sky around the halo of sunshine.
But not for long.

Clouds swallow the sun, rain pelts down.
The wind angrily broils everything into a blur.
churning across the lake, still holding its winter ice,
until with loud cracking sounds, the ice weakens and splinters.
Now there is open water.
Open water where the geese can land on their homeward journey.
And on the lawn, two robins hop, ignoring the wind, the rain and the scudding clouds.