Cyclone Melanie

It's 8pm with daylight saving, and the remnants of cyclone Melanie are still drifting over the platanus. Her leaves are grey and sombre. The heat has driven most of the red coral flowers of the Brachychiton: the belle flame tree to shed, and gradually her bright petals are being consumed by the woodchips beneath them. Opposite, watching from beyond, the orange jasmin rests deep green beneath and light green above - is it an optical illusion or the arrival of new stems and shoots? I suspect the latter. And the sky, high clouds blue roan, steel grey or is it Melanie at play, or deceased? But the weather has changed, El Nino is no more and the eastern seaboard is awash with storms and we, in the west, the tail end of cyclones.