Winter In The Antipodes Poem by Bob Gibson

Winter in the antipodes, the long Antarctic night
Months of perpetual darkness, a world devoid of light
Winds off the southern ocean, drive hard into your bones
As grassy slopes are washed away, leaving only stones
Uprooted trees lay lifeless, to rot upon the ground
A sea of leaves and branches, everywhere abound
A horizontal shower of water, strikes just like a train
Souwesterly winds are driving, the airborne driven rain
Gentle brooks and lazy streams, now a torrent flows
Flooded are the lowlands where crops and bushland grows
Further down the country, they have hoar frosts and snow
The mountain passes are all closed and the high plateau
Stock is moved to higher ground, till the storm abates
Fallen trees have taken out, power lines, fences and the gates
Animals now free to roam they herd in mud knee deep
No tractor can keep traction, Oh! how the farmers weep
Its bleak, its cold, as the wind and rain repair
A cloud of fog has descended, to some winter means despair