Weather

An English preoccupation

I’d like to claim this is an unusual subject but we all know how much time is spent trying to predict the weather, moaning about the weather, waiting for the weather to change, and this week has been one of those weeks. A week which started with downpours and thunderstorms, in which Abinger’s Teddy Bears’ Picnic, one of our local spring events, was cancelled for the second year running, and a week which finished with the sun beating down from clear blue skies.

The picnic cancellation was personally disappointing as the band I play in was due to take part and I was all set for the event. Still, there are a few other fetes and so on in the diary so we’ll keep the tunes alive.

The rain and storm made me remember a poem I started a few weeks ago when the view from the room I was in was of the bushes and trees outside - and when I had other duties to attend to…

Foliage


Foliage nodding and dancing 
welcoming the rain 
Trees not yet in leaf 
stand aloof
Crows swim the skies

Inside the main effect is noise
Wind imitating the washing machine
Rain the drum of impatient fingers
or gravel flung against a window 
by a secret lover

in the safe harbour of an armchair
mug of tea to hand
the poet is only too aware
that the dog wants a walk