Winter in Australia is cold too

Though not as cold as some climes I readily acknowledge.

Yet, August is a strange month in Australia, south of Capricorn's Line. Nominally the last month of calendar winter it is perhaps of days when the glums reach their nadir, though at the same time you sense hints of spring. One of these hints is the near imperceptible (but certain) emperical drift of the Sun across the Ecliptic coming southwards again. The days are just a little longer now with sunset just after 5:40 pm removed from the June solstice time of 5:07 pm and twilight often lingering for another 30-40 minutes beyond. I feel the lengthening light and firmly believe that the body clock is attuned to these subtle changes, often if the actual recognition is slower. This sensation has been described by some wiser minds than mine as spiritual (though not in a religious sense). Perhaps, in a way, it is a spiritual reawakening by and of Nature. Whereas, flora manifest in the obvious with blooms and spurts of growth and fauna in the change of physical appearance and a return to fecundity. In the human condition domiciled in the southern hemisphere, August is an abiding time despite the torn Earth through June and July. It is to wait upon and beyond the Ides. It is a time of preparation and of burgeoning hope. The month is still blunt and certain in its rebuke but the consciousness is alive with hints and I am certain these hints are transmitted to the intuitive. By that, perhaps if you are sympathetic to this disputed concept, into the soul itself. It is all these things for me, not that I have any particular monopoly or subscription in this consideration. Whilst I hanker for the Bush and become restless when away from its adoration for too long, (and I have been long away by quirk of circumstance) often we cannot have what the heart seeks to recognise. September will be kinder in this regard and of course summer will be a feast. I will settle for the Beach and Tides, glady and with appreciation.

Altona Pier was, oddly, bereft of activity today. The comme d'habitude larrikin Fishers were no doubt smug in their homes, set by warm heaters, about to tuck into hot soup and watch the evening newscast on their television sets. Their lines and tackle dry stowed undisturbed in their Sheds, their waders hung on rusty hooks. The ocean, which after a tidal journey up Port Phillip Bay, was moody as it smacked onto the shore, its waves having lipped and broke well before - there's a rumour of bad weather in these salt slaps for tomorrow I sense. To the west, the Sun was gone but not the Hesperides. There was Erythia, with her skirt of scarlet and her sisters, Aegle flirting with brightness before a clearly unimpressed curtain of descending night and of course, the most beautiful of all, Hesperarethusa with her glow of wondrous colours. I am glad to be a witness, for no sunset or twilight is ever dull as it leaves the world's last edge. In our lifetime we see so few and each one for me is cherished beyond value. Today is a fete of the beauty of sunset and its crepuscular rouge.

Journey waves
Of an ocean ruled by Moon
Stroked across the Beach
Its grains cushioning
Steps that have walked years.
A cloud-quilted sun in the descent

Brokered a brief twilight.

Distantly
Curved the Beach
Sabred by a Pier,
Sand bars in the Tide wash
A strange desert above the water breakers.
Remanent Tea-trees
Surprised survivors
Marked the horizon
To which earnest bike riders
Furiously pedalled.

In the shallows
Amid small gardens of seaweed
Small fish darted unwisely,
Predators waded
Picking them off as if in a Supermarket.
Gulls scavenged
For anything of protein,
Quality for them is not an issue.

Like a unruly child
The outline of great City
Toyed with an east sky lit by fossil burns,
And the muffled
Uncaring roar of its claim
Was perceptible in this combustion
Of wind and wave and suburbia.

An ice-cream vendor's van
In opposition to the Season
Hawked wares
And cool drinks
With childhood memories:
Customers? Not many, on this
August late afternoon.