The rain comes shining down like a million fishing lines,
reaching for me
cocooned in my safety, low-lying, still, in this magic
underwater.
I watch with a secret eye as the storm washes over the
garden.
Suddenly I am a fish; this is how it must be, this is a
fluid world
of rippling; merging and weaving; shifting endlessly;
a gentle kaleidoscope
of all the greens of spring there ever were,
the lemons, viridians, emeralds, limes, vibrant, gay,
shimmering, shivering over the moss, the sage and shadowed
olive; dun;
the melting hail slow-slipping down the panes in toad-spawn
strings;
the zinging raindrops spitting on the glass like mayflies;
the shafts, the explosions of dazzling light
smashing beyond the surface-shine like dancing suns;
the breath-deep tread of marching thunder, nearer,
pours rag-stepping over the shaking bridge of the sky.
Two ducks flight low against the leaden fear,
their long necks stretched in supplication.
The clouds pass.
I surface into April;
ten million blackbirds shout to see me come.
(April, 1983)
