Rain. The rain none wanted:
not the farmers whose hay
lay in the fields to dry;
nor we, gathered here as
we mumbled our goodbyes.

The earth’s silent embrace
waited. But there is no
sure and certain hope, no
mercy here, just birdsong;
and flowers and mute trees
and the rain, still the rain.

The roof held. Through last year's storms it held      good.
Others' didn't. Tiles were displaced, some fell; must have leaked too.
This one was sound though: sound enough, I thought.

Wasps wouldn't nest in unsound eaves.
It would need to be dry for them. They were nesting when we
First summered here and we had to **** them.

Sometimes I can still hear their buzz in the dry air.

The weather forecast says the wind
turned. It comes from the east today.
This weather was yours yesterday.
The molecules that make this moving air
Have chilled your skin, stroked your hair.
I turn my face to the wind
And through its chill your warmth is there.

Winter sun lay warm
on our backs. The grass
greened by the rainstorm
still wet as a tear

From a leafless copse
came a rapid knock
unechoed across
the softening air

And then the quiet
But a shy rebuke
a distant tap, faint
compromised the calm.