that today …

rain is coating slopes of trees with a thin slick.

Watching it descend over the hill

I think of those parched, pitted countries

where rain rarely falls, how they need it,

now, to quench fires ignited by hate

nourish a people in despair

the murderous swell of seas it has travelled

sucked up, to fall as a blessing here.

It pulls a blind over high heather covered

moors, sealing in moisture,

promising life; mist columns rise

ghosts of bitten, bomb-blasted towers

that will never take the shape of rooms again

rustle of leaves in a gentle wind

is the movement of falling plaster, a trickle of pain

which seems too small a word for loss, grief,

death

The wind rises, lamenting fields,

clouds of sheep scudding in front of it,

the only violence here, a squabble of starlings

their sudden panicked flight.

As the rain rolls in, long-left sea surges

collect unwanted in puddles, ruts

tyre treads of tractors, far away from

war, it’s scrabble and fight.

Make of me a crazed, cracked pot,

shedding water over devastated earth,

fissured parchment skin,

leaking love, comfort, to children who

need so much more than a hug, though

that would be a start, arc rainbows

over ruined lives, their haunted cries

an unanswered call to prayer.