HOW TO MEASURE RAIN

Walking through an ancient woodland

Wildflower meadows glinting through the trees

Man and nature working together

The whistle of unseen songbirds drifting on the breeze.

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Watery flatlands and Roman dykes

Juxtaposed with hydro-electric pumps

Stratiform precipitation falling from nimbostratus

Condensing into water droplets that look like rainy lumps.

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Grey unchanging weather that doesn’t go anywhere fast

Two woodpeckers on a grass verge looking for ants

A kingfisher unzips the air

And a shrew lies dead by the river banks.

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Worms brought to the surface by tapping rain

A sparrowhawk hunched in a leafless ash tree

While above a coven of goldfinches cause a riot – again.

An April walk through the sunshine and showers

Huge, creamy candles of horse chestnuts hang down

Still locked inside ripening green flowers

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This is farmed arable land

But laymen have long lost interest

Where food come from anymore

Apart from what’s written on the packet inside the supermarket door

The rain falls on everything

Both the living and the dead

Walking has deepened my feeling for outside

This is my week of getting wet.