LONGING
FOR RAIN
This poem was written after
living in the country for a while during a period of relative drought
(at least for the coastal area- much worse droughts happen in the
western inland of Australia). I was struck forcibly by
how Dependant we are in reality on things like the weather (something
largely concealed from urban dwellers).
Each line of each four-line
stanza has four trochaic feet (Stressed, unstressed) e.g SLOWly
though some lines end with just one stressed syllable. However the
dynamics of imagery in each verse are based on the following
observation of the method of some Chinese poetry.
A well-known Japanese poet was
asked how to compose a Chinese poem.
"The usual Chinese poem is
four lines," he explained. "The first line contains the
initial phrase; the second line, the continuation of that phrase; the
third line turns from this subject and begins a new one; and the
fourth line brings the first three lines together. A popular Japanese
song illustrates this:
Two daughters of a silk merchant live in Kyoto.
The elder is twenty, the younger, eighteen.
A soldier may kill with his sword,
But these girls slay men with their eyes.
( Quote from http://deoxy.org/koan/88)
LONGING FOR RAIN
Every day the sky is blue;
Slowly slopes of green turn yellow.
When a thing’s lost, thieves are looked for…
Who has stolen summer rain?
No-one but the wind perhaps;
Twilight breezes clear last clouds.
Once I lived by roads and gardens.
Here the earth cracks with its need.
Even these, these coastal lands,
Far from busy urban streets,
Parch in ceaseless, summer sun.
Tropic rains won’t cross the border.
In the cities and the towns
Reservoirs provide the flow,
Water gardens, sustain the flowers.
City people live illusions.
Here you see how we’ve no power
To enchant the blue to greyness.
Earlier fine days seemed fine;
Now the fine days fall like threats.
Longing for the rain I scan
Bare horizons of the blue.
Once I wished for summer tan;
Now I know another yearning.
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