Two Kinds of Rain

Chapel cattle cluster in the field's corner 
black as coal dust against a sombre sky.
Swirling clouds deposit moisture
like muslin saturated and dripping
over the cheese in Nain's larder. 
The wet, wet, wet of it all
mizzling, dripping, pelting,
windsweep and gust lulling to steady, relentless fall.
Today's deluge comes, horizontal, from the sea,
drowning seagull cries in salt spray and teasing squall;
on other days it descends from high Pumlumon,
sodden clouds blotting out light and sound,
muffling the struggling day. Then easterly winds
chase the cloud-edge, beat and thin it,
exposing sporadic radiance and hinting
at relief and a path to the sun.
Often I have opened the garden gate
in damp or drench, wanting to turn
on the path and retreat to fireside and kettle,
impelled outward only by the insistence of work.
East or west, the downpour chaps the skin,
invades the joints and fuels a longing for dry heat.

© Janet Henderson 2015