Two Poems on Weather

Two weather pieces by way of a Valentine's Day blessing. With a red rose, a glass of wine, a candle-lit meal, and darkness heading on its stormy way into the weekend. Hear it howl!


LISTENING TO THE WEATHER

Suddenly words poured
out of drains into gardens
too drenched to hear them.

Trees and bushes were
listening to the ursprache 
of rising thunder.

The lake strained to hear
the utterances of cloud
spreading over it.

The world was all ears,
the fields preparing their notes
for a bright future.

But when the wind spoke
loud and clear to a tumult
of rain, the rain heard.

And when the fields spoke
water and the sky bellowed
air, it was meaning.

People were measuring
the tides, calibrating loss
by the yard and mile.

There were the data
properly laid out and crunched
into neat pie-charts.

Language was effort.
The sky could say what it liked
with its dark grammar

of gesture and shift.
We were at cross-purposes
and longing for sun.

WHAT THE WIND SAID

1
When the wind blows the streets are discomfited, muttered the grass and bent its head. Blow on, dude, screamed the leaves.

2
The wind didn't know what to do with its hands so it stuck them in its pockets which were full of holes. The body is wind, said the wind.

3
The rain couldn't agree with the wind. They spoke different languages. Bring me an intepreter, howled the wind. Now hammer me out a deal.

4
The wind was taking refuge in an open mouth. It met a wind coming up. Human beings are disgusting, it said. I will work my way down deeper.

5
Each raindrop broke up on landing. Their scattered bones will shine, wrote the poet whose own bones did not add up to much.

6
Face it guys, said the wind, it's nature or nothing. It says so on the contract and no amount of rain will wash it away.

7
The wind was furious. There must be a cause, said the man in the wind. It's your flapping coat creating a draught, said his neighbour.

8
Got any wind, the addict asked the dealer. You can't afford it, the dealer replied, but I can get someone to blow in your ear.

9
There were several tribes of rain all claiming the same territory. A war ensued of which we have various disputed historical accounts.

10
This is revolution, screamed the wind. Like last week you mean, said the vagrant. No, the week before, said the wind.