Tasting red dirt coming out to meet me,

pushing a front of black clouds over the sea,

crashing my waves onto limestone groynes,

hearing their thunder, feeling their spray,

I gather myself. Roll in, roll in.

Head home.

Fire trucks, sirens, red blue flashing, flashing.

Powerlines ignite. Two humans shoulder to shoulder

shove sandbags against doors. I bust

into yellow brick houses, hurl timber,

nails, rafters aside. Trees

are smart enough to bend.

I race on. Here comes the town.

Glass panels bulge, shatter. I spit glass

at floors, ceilings, faces: woman

in moonboot with children under

staircase. Roofing curls up, surrenders,

falls, falls into house. Stairs collapse.

Garden. Red brick dunny. Church.

Weatherboards flex, tin roof shudders.

I strike the jarrah rafters, fling

their covers into the distance. I face

the courthouse — limestone walls,

boarded-up windows. We fight.

I win. With steel and nails in my core

I kick over new project estates,

matchstick models in a toy world.

I blow at cars, watch them tumble.

From my cloudbanks I pour out rain,

flashing blue onto the national park.

The canyon opens its mouth to me.

I try to dig holes in thick canopy

but old growth holds firm. I strip

the weak dry branches, smash

their spindly arms to the floor.

The woodland bellows back.

I slow down, roll inland, confront

the belt of wheat, shrunken wetlands,

ice-like stretches of salt,

blow away sheds, barbed wire, sandy soil.

I snigger at the ease of it,

dissolve into belly laughs, shriek

and spit at neat rows of poplars.

Remnant gums give me spears

to cast at desolate settlements

of agricultural loan banks,

irrigated fields of canola,

graffitied silos.

I am armed. Give way.