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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Martin Worster

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The Coming Of The Wet Season

The sound and smell of rain from an open bedroom window
Filters through the pores of his mosquito net.
The air is heavy with possibilities cascading
From the guttering above
Thickening

Beads of moisture form and gather
Standing on the walls and windows
On his cheeks

Elsewhere an impartial hand announces four o’clock
To a chorus of a thousand sighs
Her face is turned towards the window
Breathing deeply
Gulping down the soil in draughts

This is the time when people die, we’re told,
When things are most run down
Most vulnerable

Outside the earth is bent beneath the onslaught
Of impaling rain

Mahanqua cannot sleep
He has withered with his crops beneath a naked sky
Watched his vacant fields subliming into dust
Now it is raining in his hut
The elements assault the brittle thatch above his head
And a puddle is now forming in the hearth

Something stirs beneath the floor
Pushing upwards
Swelling.

Somewhere a fluttering heartbeat falters,
Picks up and gathers strength, reluctantly,
Tapping out its fragile message
In the darkness
Naked. Stark.
Undeniable, almost.

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