Precipitation
Not, as Athenaeus reports, fish dropping from the sky,
the lanes blocked, the town rank for days,
or, more improbably, the iron and blood Pliny speaks of;
nor, in this latter age, your grandfather’s boyhood boast,
his twinkling hail of frogs pattering down on field and square:
upgatherings and scatterings - whatever lay insecure
about the world seeding the air with stories:
newspapers, washing, slates, babies, stray cats and dogs,
and even that fictive house Dorothy hated
caught spinning into another place:
no, nothing on this August afternoon but the steady rain-
brimming the gutters, slanting into the trees -
that, colourless itself, and odourless,
yet gives to earth and stone their proper scent
and tongues the leaves with light.
poetrymagazines note: "Precipitation" is included in Clive Watkins' book Jigsaw published by Waywiser Press in London, ISBN 1-904130-10-0
Page(s) 68
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