Adamastor's cheeks bulge as he spumes
Above the table-top, chasing clouds down ravines
Across the city bowl, blasting the past
Over Mandela's island and van Riebeek's landing
Howling past windows, rattling on doors
Sending skirts flying and hair in the air
Dishevelled, ungroomed white horses
Peppered and salting the waves of the bay
Until the wind drops and the flags droop
Before flying in the opposite direction.






                                                                                             
    The cape doctor rushes along avenues tending
     Pine trees bent by micro-fractures into kyphosis
     Needles bounced along with left-over litter
     Wind in the willows swaying frond-like
     Trunks creaking and boughs breaking
     So that more than a cradle falls
     As humanity looks out on the blizzard
     Naming and blaming dust-borne diseases
     Until the wind drops and the owl of the cowl
                                                                                                    Turns tail and faces the other way.
The southeaster races into the yacht basin
Fighting kites diving from overhead flight
Storm-force upgraded to gale-force
As hawsers stretch with a squeaking door
The salted air straining and staining the craft
Foghorns blaring over the misted bay
Until the mercury rises and the wind drops
Skipper aboard, his hand on the tiller
Sails filled with Apple Pie raring to go
Anchors aweigh as the gulls head north.

February 2011


Change is still in the air 51 years after Harold MacMillan's historic speech on Wind of Change to parliament in Cape Town on 3 February 1960..


Click here for photographs of Windy Cape Town