Rain Man

Rain – the sky’s way
of purging itself;
in the shelter of a porch –
painted his favourite shade
of bullshit pink,
I watch him leave.

Want to follow,
and, in my mind, do...
with a sense of so many
behind me – both the living
and the dead.

Something makes
me long to scatter
silver butterflies; not
like tears – but stars
to help them plot
their course.

I see him walking
the lanes, sitting on gates,
watching cows, and sheep...
slipping into corduroy folds
the colour of thunder....

fog shrouding
the peaks, the pylons
and the sky,
and the trying
to forget.