Summer rain

 

 

There are certain summer mornings when the rain drifts

sideways, almost a mist, and all is doused

in a wash of silvers and greys: colours from a palette

of pebble and lichen, herring gull and trout.

 

Sun hats are thrown aside

in favour of anoraks. Plans

are revised. Do we miss the sun?

The primary blue, the glare?

 

Well, yes. But the air is fresh and sweet and raindrops cling

to wires and glistening leaves. Snails will inch

out from the hedges shining, while we just drift

idly: from breakfast … to morning coffee … to lunch.

 

 

(A poem from 2010. But I reproduce it here at the end of a remarkably wet August in England!)