global warming

Global Warming


Gentle rain falls, in the night, on the roof tiles
keeps the cottage awake, it inhales and exhales
until the darkness in my room sways; yet less
rain falls now than before and the lake, where
the landscape dips, has long since gone.

On my night wandering I walk through a room
that used to be a stable for a mule, and when
rain falls I can smell hay and the lovely aroma
of animal that has worked the field all day and
through soft nostrils contented snorts.

The mule is still there and I have to be careful
it doesn’t know it has passed on waits to be
harnessed for a new day of work; come morning
I will let it out to graze, but if it still rains I’ll
tethered under the big carob tree.

Gentle rain one day it will be gone, the wind
will blow scour the landscape white, till it is
only fit for scorpions and snakes, the mule
and I will have to ride for days to find a place
where rain softly falls on old roof tiles.