Drinking Rain

It’s raining, and runs all over the roof and windows.  I planted out pots with geraniums and the like, so I’m pleased, and as I hear the rain I breathe the sound in, to become part of me, and I breathe out, to join it outside in the wet and the wild. Then I read a poem by Peter Redgrove:

‘A wineglass overflowing with thunderwater Stands out on the drumming steel table

Among the outcries of the downpour Feathering chairs and rethundering on the awnings.

How the pellets of water shooting miles Fly into the glass of swirl, and slop

Over the table’s scales of rust Shining like chained sores, Because the rail eats everything except the glass

Of spinning water that is clear down here But purple with rumbling depths above, and this cloud

Is transferring its might into a glass In which thunder and lightning come to rest,

The cloud crushed into a glass. Suddenly I dart out into the patio, Snatch the bright glass up and drain it,

Bang it back down on the thundery steel table for a refill.’

So, I copy him – dash out and place a wineglass on the grubby peeling table on the patio, and later I drink from half an inch of rainwater.  It tastes like an elixir of life.  Pure.  Bob wonders whether I’m drinking dust from the Sahara.