The prompt for Day 17 from napowrimo was to write an epistolary poem — a poem in the form of a letter.
‘… include at least 4 of the below in your poem:
1) a song lyric
2) a historical fact
3) an oddball adjective-noun combination (like red grass or loud silence)
4) a fruit
5) the name of a street in your neighbourhood
6) a measure of distance.’
Quite a challenge, I felt. Here is my response:
To British Weather
Today you are for me
And against me.
Raindrops keep falling on my head
You invite me to catch up
With things I
Should have done
Or
Could have done
But
Didn’t do.
An interruption, intrusion!
An amazing fact is that
Animals can
Rain from the sky,
Don’t ask me why,
I looked it up
To satisfy
A requirement,
A demand,
For a poetic challenge.
Another!
One hundred yards away
Is Crown East Lane,
Where you can buy
Soft, hand-made, fragrant leather gloves
Near the Church of St Thomas.
Here, at harvest time,
The children bring baskets of
Apples, pears,
Plums and damsons.
Anyway, weather,
Where were we
Before I so
Rudely interrupted me?
Oh yes, catching up with
The things
I should have,
Could have,
And didn’t
Do.
No chance of
Gardening,
Don’t want to
Get drowned.
You are for me
Drowning
In words,
You are
Against me
Gardening.
I listen and hear,
Raindrops keep falling on my head
Dribbling, scribbling
On the windows
Dripping, gripping
The brickwork,
Soaking, cloaking
The wooden, now wet and dark,
Garage door.
And inhale the freshness of moist drops – the scent of rain.
Polly Robinson © 2012
