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Postcards to the Rain God (an extract)
by Sean O’Brien
Postcards to the Rain God (an extract) - Sean O’Brien
'Postcards from the Rain God'is a series of about a dozen brief, dramatic lyrics, I suppose, about rain in various Northern settings, and the eleventh of them is dedicated to Peter Didsbury, a fellow poet, on his fiftieth birthday - he is a great pluviophile.
Postcards to the Rain God (an extract)
from Postcards to the Rain God
for Peter Didsbury on his fiftieth birthday
11
You sit in your shed in the rain.
In its peppercorn racket
You have a much better idea:
Marks on paper, made from the pluvial sexual
Ink of the Iris and Pearson Park pond-rain.
Messages unread, a century
From now: Today a cloudburst settling
Its anvil on the slates.
Then longer, softer rain – I cannot tell you how –
Is like piano-islands
In the pond. Ad
Maiorem Pluvii gloriam.
from Cousin Coat (Picador, 2002), copyright © Sean O’Brien 2002, used by permission of the author and Macmillan Publishers.