Rain on a Friday in November
For today’s MindLetter, Kitty Wheater leaves prose behind in order to write about rain, and the weight of the things we carry.
This week prose eluded me. This is what happened instead.
Rain on a Friday in November
Rain on a Friday in November is
The coat that drips gently in the corner of the room.
It’s the screech of rusting brake cables on a bicycle
The leaves that gleam in the gutter
The umbrella abandoned by the recycling bin,
Life broken by a gust of wind.
It is the wrong bin.
It’s the way you weigh the travel.
The steam and wheeze of stop-start sodden bus,
The commitment to a skin-soaked bike ride
The wet face of an hour’s walk.
It is the dream of the impervious.
Splashback under tyres wakes you.
Rain on a Friday in November is
The electronic door that won’t open,
Or judders to a halt
Too soon for your wet feet.
Your prints spell the city up the stairs.
Drink hot coffee. A change of clothes,
But you still feel weak beneath the weight
Of shadowy things, too drizzly for words
Over-bearing clouds, too dense for silence.
Rain on a Friday in November is the way you start to wonder
If you might give some of your own sorrow to the flood.
Could you?
Might you watch the rain and let it fall?
Coat dripping, weight of everything, wait for the lightening sky?
It’s small, this, and not an ending. But tomorrow: will be dry.
