The wind howled drowning out the shrieks of crows As they harried and swooped at the buzzard above Forcing him yet again to drop his hard-won prey And as the clouds thickened, and sky darkened, All signs of light started to fade from the day. A mighty thunderous storm was surely on its way.
Once more, I emptied the bucket, that now Seems to permanently live in the loft Always waiting, to catch that single drop of water That somehow manages to find its way Through the edge of the roof tiles, to drip In perfect correlation with the rain.
Then it began…
It started with a gentle pitter-patter On the sun-lounge roof where it is always first noticed Soon lightning flashed in its startling iridescence Of pink and blue, to prove to us its presence Shortly followed by the long mighty crash Of thunder as it tried desperately to catch up
And with it came a reservoir of rain
At the windows it rushed so break-neck fast It seemed they would surely just burst or smash A bird-table outside in the garden fell With a loud breaking-to-pieces crash And flower pots took to the air in unison.
Jugglers may spin plates around on sticks I’ve seen more than a dozen spinning round But the wind has no boundaries and hurled up high Plastic pots of all colour and size and shape Outside the window such a staggering sight The pots now looked as if they were Heaven bound.
And then it stopped…
As suddenly as it had begun, the lightning disappeared The thunder, after a last weak gentle rumble, fell silent The rain changed to a light drizzle and finally stopped It was as if it knew it had other places to call, and it had. And in it’s wake the sun peered wearily from behind the clouds Daylight returned, and once more a sense of calm descended.
And as the wind gradually faded to a gentler breeze And saplings that had bent over stood up again like trees A small cascade of flower pots quickly fell to the ground And added to the mess that the short storm had left I turned my back and walked away to my den That would be a tidying task for who knows when!