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Dan Wyke

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Rain Song

The body knows when it’s about to rain –

bared skin breaking out in pimples,
short hairs bristling in the presence of static,

the nose registering its proximity like a radar,
scrambling the system, confusing the brain –

an instinct that’s survived our need for it.

In seconds the street’s a stream,
weaving over the bed of cobbles,

pushing in the same direction
as though it senses where to go,

umbrellas swept along like petals on its flow.

Drenched, I find my hotel and step through
a dripping doorway into the dry.

When I’m a stranger in a foreign city,
I like listening to the music different rains make

in a room that’s not my own.

The pot-pinging, glass-chinking xylophone sounds
of a short, sharp downpour.

The monotonous drumming in the small hours.

And the soft drizzle that soaks into sleep,
or settles on the river of thought,

whispering of emptiness.

It threatens and excites me,
the rain dissolving the world,

as it did our ancestors, dwelling in caves.

Faintly aware of a future without them,
they painted their lives on the walls.

Late, in a hotel room,
I start to write –

something to outlive that erasure.

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