The jacarandas are in flower in Sydney. It must be November – though they’ve been out for a couple of weeks now, ominously early.
November is LoSoRhyMo, that is to say Local Sonnet Rhyming Month and I am obliged to produce 14 14-line poems over these 30 days. Rhyming is essential and quantity matters more than quality. The fact that I’m the sole LoSoRhyMo-ist doesn’t render the obligation any less binding. This is the tenth November I’ve taken this on. (If you want to buy previous years’ efforts, check out my publications page.)
So here goes, starting five late, but intending to fill the quota:
Verse 1: The jacaranda have flowered early, again
Too late, they said, when jacaranda's
bright cloud lit the uni quad,
too late to start revising, and as
now Adani's got the nod
'too late' takes on a darker meaning:
year by year the parks are greening
earlier, the purple haze
of jacaranda too. Our days
are numbered, or at least they're hotter.
Lovely trees push flowers out
too early: bushfires, fish kills, drought
are part of that same picture. What a
great world! Please, no more debate.
If not now when? Next year's too late.
Me fail? I fly! 