There’s going to be a thunderstorm quite soon, <br />The air is still, the sky is growing darker, <br />Clouds tower above and menacingly loom. <br />I’m sitting in the summer house beneath <br />The apple tree, late afternoon. Out there <br />And unaware of me are lots of birds. <br />They seem to lead such active busy lives: <br />Two swallows flutter in among and under- <br />neath the apple leaves to seek out flies <br />That congregate and shelter there, in vain; <br />The little perky nut-brown jenny wren <br />With jaunty tail is like a tiny mouse, <br />Now here, now there, and everywhere she goes; <br />On centre stage the tattered father blackbird <br />Who all summer long has toiled each day <br />His ever hungry importuning young <br />To feed is here attended by two portly <br />Daughters whose gaping bills he tries to fill; <br />From time to time the curious bright-eyed robin <br />Comes to sit upon the chimonière <br />From where he looks at me, the only bird <br />To know that I am watching from within. <br /> <br />The stage begins to clear then when a peal <br />Of thunder says the storm is nearly here. <br />The pattering on the wooden roof begins <br />To quicken, rain falls upon the paving stones <br />Outside in furious floods until again <br />It slackens and becomes desultory. <br />The stage is empty now, the curtain down, <br />All actors gone save for the garden toad <br />Who slowly crawls across the dampened grass <br />Enjoying all this wetness everywhere, <br />With raindrops sliding off his wrinkled skin. <br />And afterwards when now the storm has passed <br />A cool and welcome freshness fills the air, <br />The curtain lifts, and one by one the cast <br />Returns to centre stage, the play goes on.<br /><br />Pete Crowther<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-summer-storm/
