weather

This day is clouds and earth
in our crisp bitter bodies
not our usual knowledge here

journeyed from mountains to city plain
snowish wind and rain virga
a torn drape from cumulus

moist and dry meeting
evanescing into the halfway
what we need is blown

we see this wispy precipitant
virgin thought of rain
not arriving any time soon

...


I learnt a new word today - virga which more or less means the light floaty kind of rain that evaporates before it reaches the ground (especially when the lower reaches of the air are low in humidity).

I do lots of 'weather' poems. I always recall, inaccurately probably, that John Ashbery once said there are three great themes in poetry: love, death and the weather. When I tell people this they often laugh but I don't really understand why. Seems pretty obvious to me.






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