Poetry Blog no 170 Fire Weather

 

FIRE WEATHER

Sometimes in summer in the area of the far north coast of NSW if it doesn’t rain for a while and the heat grows towards the high 30’s (centrigrade) or beyond it grows dry and the days are almost too bright, the colours feel washed out by the glare. This is “fire weather” in a more threatening way also- the dangers of actual forest fires or bush fires as they are known in Australia. This poem also references the “Fire Sermon” traditionally ascribed to the Buddha.

The Ādittapariyāya Sutta (Pali, "Fire Sermon Discourse"), sometimes referred to simply as the Āditta Sutta, is a discourse from the Pali Canon, popularly known as the Fire Sermon.In this discourse, the Buddha preaches about achieving liberation from suffering through detachment from the five senses and mind.

In this discourse, the Buddha describes the sense bases and resultant mental phenomena as "burning" with passion, aversion, delusion and suffering. Seeing such, a noble disciple becomes disenchanted with, dispassionate toward and thus liberated from the senses bases, achieving arahantship. From Wikipedia

FIRE WEATHER

Ever-ceaseless sun is parching

Pasture grass on browning hills.

Heat gives topic to tired talk,

Day is blazing silent haze.

Afterthoughts of white cloud contrast

With the brilliancy of blue:

Day's dome bathing all in thirsting

Radiance that drinks earth dry.

Here is heat that holds the landscape

In a sorcery of glare;

Like a sulphured dragon breathing

Fire through the trembling air.

Even butcher birds and magpies

Hide in fainting leaves to shelter

In solicitude of shadow,

Beaks slight-parted, softly-panting.

Now time sweats. And even colours

Burn upon the vision, flame,

Hazed in day's intensity,

Focused in a crystal furnace.

Yellowed grasses wither back

To dry-fisssured ground which bakes

To a hot and lifeless dust.

Creeks and dams sink towards the earth.

Hazed with heat, eyes glazed with glare,

Restlessly we scan the rim

Of our sight for rain's relief,

For release from fire weather.

For tranquillity is coolness,

And detachment from sense flame;

Fire weather's fire sermon:

All the world seems burning, burning.