Threat of Rain

The wind whistled through the cave.
Drawn closer by parchment threnodies,
trailed through umbrella tracks,
and bread baskets upturned and dusted.
While, behind the child’s lustre bruising the jewelled cluster, dancing drear light on emerald leaves falling knee-height,
the clouds advanced:
Threat of rain, they said.

As footsteps loom, hollow-hidden,
from the travelling road,
cuckoo’s calls glistening laboured breaths beneath my chin,
while basin rivulets scatter neon light before the cave mouth.
Seth, bobbing his cork from one cloud to the next,
pointing eastwards, parts lips, cracked and sore
to call for his nimbus nest.
Threat of rain, he said.

Rebels, stood dumbfounded in the street beneath the cave,
call to passers bye, betting them the short straw,
with their handful of rye.
While suited venders catcall Midas’ recompense,
litter picking outside the job centre picket fence.
But most walk with their eyes to the sky,
beckoning above with open pocket pulled finger and thumb,
to bucket rhythms like the gargoyle snout songs
from the bell tower toll rattling rain showers in woozy light.
Threat of rain, they murmured.

Scurrying wayfarers break their vigils around the soiled reed bed below.
Spoiling through the rooted flesh and furnaced seed atoll while the thunder clouds called in earnest, but the lyre rusted, and the finger cut.
As unyielding sceptres bow towards the obscure light,
and the howling watchmen in the night,
Gabriel, his hot air balloon tight,
sinks beneath the translucent blue.
With tidings borrowed fr om each cloud out west:
There’s threat of rain, some have said.