mules plodding sun-hatted flowers tucked behind twitching ears

as I hear our weather “snow to 300 metres”

Wairarapa – means water/sun place –

but it is windswept, isolate, a world away from sultry jazz,

strolling listening,eating sweet treat beignets,

a snowfall of sweetness.

Levees and light, oil flares –

us into arguments, discussions about life/water scarcity

the local environment- Mississippi too

I am remembering the oil search markers in the bayou

Heron swept,flight above oil flares

on the river.

I recall the disasters, Katrina, the Gulf.

New Orleans, a scintillating tidal-city

en-Gulf-fired, flooded

French-slave traded, Spanish-infiltrated

Andrew Jackson-liberated.

I miss the cobbled streets

latticed balconies, seeing swallows swift on warm nights

now I am abed, cold, in the Wairarapa.

it’s also windswept, isolate a world away from sultry jazz

stroitlling eating sweet-treat beignets a