How To Measure Rain Poem by Tom O'Brien

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 sparrow-hawk 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.