Carillon Magazine

Readers’ Free Bookmark Competition

Issue 15

Rain

June Drake (Plymouth)

I hear the sound of torrential rain
lashing the windows. The wind howls
and things crash, taken by its mighty force.
Only a madman would venture
out tonight but my errand is urgent
and I have to leave. *Rain, midnight rain,
nothing but the wild rain greets me.
I should remain until morning and yet I cannot.
There is little light, save that of lightning
when it strikes and then I see no-one.
The usual throng of night people
has been erased, wiped from the canvas
as unfitting, unreal, unseemly.
Rain's song crept in to steal them
as only it can control the path of man.

* from 'Rain' by Edward Thomas