By Chaz Brenchley
This perished ground has long forgotten rain.
The petrichor is buried deep,
So deep we would need storms and floods to find it.
You point at a cloud and say bear.
Or was it hare or here? Were?
The were-cloud encompasses the lot.
Each shapeless shifty thing becomes a metaphor
For mind, for mindfulness,
For change and time and art and words and us.
Forgotten rains seep out of sodden turf
Beneath a sky that’s clearing.
Whatever words we use, the storm’s the same:
Portentous, overbearing, long-delayed.
Never mind that rising smell; we’ll say it’s drains,
Or damp. Decay is universal.
Point at clouds. Say things.
Before we’ve all forgotten how to speak.
Spark by Paula Grainger
Copyright © Chaz Brenchley 2016