Title: Season

Author: Vincent O'Sullivan

In: Sport 8: Autumn 1992

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, March 1992, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 8: Autumn 1992

♣ Vincent O'Sullivan — Season

page 45

Vincent O'Sullivan

Season

She is watching from her window
the storm stand up from the side of the hill
and lurch over the valley,
its fur dragging the pines.
It gnaws at the lemon tree in the yard.
The leaves throw glass this way and that,
there is a forced light and a green
quickness underneath the storm.
'You'd think they loved each other.
The wind and the tree are making love.'
And then: 'Or hate each other.
It hardly matters. They have still made love.'
The storm decides on another suburb.
The tree flashes recovery.
'It never becomes fruit of course, not
in this climate.' Yet to say
'the lemon tree' is something. To say
when the southerlies ravage in,
'Let's hope the tree makes it,' is a bonus
of sorts in a cold climate. We know
whatever happens what the scene might be.
The circumflexion of bees. The waxy intentions.
What it's like in other places.