There’s a cyclone on its way to town.
It crossed quickly northern Queensland,
the Northern Territory,
northern Western Australia
and went out to sea,
only to reform and now turn south.

They say its speed and the ‘brown oceans’
of inland flooding have kept it going.
The slower it goes, the further south it will be
when it crosses land (its fourth time
to do so in Australia) but, also,
the weaker it will be by then.
Still, it is expected to reach ‘category 4’
before then.
Technically, it seems, no cyclones have crossed land
as far south as Perth
(by then tropical lows, or else staying out at sea).

This follows, at the end of last year,
the first ever cyclone to form
over the Malacca Strait in Indonesia—
the equator not usually providing the right conditions
for cyclones to begin.
It then moved north over Malaysia, Thailand
and into the South China Sea.

The cyclone rarely so far south,
and the cyclone rarely over the equator.
Conditions on Earth have changed.

Considering this, it seems to me
to be a picture of social conditions
in the world today.
Conditions have changed—
unusual, rare, phenomena appear.
The wind blows all sorts of ways.

The expression comes to mind:
“For they have sown the wind,
and shall reap the whirlwind.”
The upheavals of the world today
seem part of a longer journey.
Some things may be inevitable,
but we can still prepare,
and maybe change.

A taste of the greater whirlwind
is upon us.
The question is where is calm,
where is freedom,
where is peace?
Maybe it is to stand upright,
right in its eye—right in its centre.
To stand in this place of stillness
and freedom in ourselves,
and create spaces for others
to do the same.

Preparing for the storm,
in the midst of the storm.
Battening down the hatches—
securing humanity—
for what comes next.