Tag: journey

Rain, rolling up eastward from Bristol, hurried
After the train. Travelling towards you…
Alan Ross ~ A Following Rain

Anticipation burns a hole
in patience. The measured miles
of line stretch ahead, all along the length
of hours. My back to the engine, I’m backtracking
on intent, a reverse pull when I came this way,
before, leaving you behind. Attention drifts

To the window, to a myriad sparkling polka-dots
late afternoon rain with the sun warming, lighting,
drying- but still more fall, larger drops than before
a playful tug-of-weather-war and I’m tugged
further back to a song of youth’s heyday:
“I want to know
Have you ever seen the rain
Comin’ down on a sunny day?”*

We pass a field of sunflowers, not a hippie vision
but a kind of triffid agricrop lifting burnished
thirsty heads. For now nimbus clouds have triumphed
strafing the sky, they gather momentum, puff
a greyscale palette over quick-change landscapes.
Through bleary illuminations, I see towns slip past
the carriage windows running with rivulets
sideways, upwards even. Gravity’s defied

in this high-speed rush. Across my reflection
thoughts flicker, doubts stir, questions arise
about our meeting after all. I’m left wondering too
if it’s wise, if old habits do persist
so that at the long-awaited station
you’ll have kept me waiting, yet again
in the rain.

[*Credence Clearwater Revival – Have you ever seen the rain ~ 1970]

After a record-breaking warm dry May, it's refreshing to join Sarah's Poetics prompt: Rain