(Paris, France, January 2000)Luxuriously warm and dry, under a duvet, in a warm bed, in a Paris apartment, seven floors high,
from the moment of pre-wakeful consciousness I know it is raining.
Even before I move I am aware of an abundant presence of water.
I know the air is heavy, drenched and dripping with it.
Focusing a little, I can hear it gushing through gutters.
6:30. Too dark, too wet, too soon to face the logistics of the day,
I sink, retreat, slip silently back into sleep,
rocked gently by the rhythmic swish of tyres on the smooth, wet road.
(Hunter's Quay, Scotland, UK, July 1997)
And from within the mists of slumber a dream wave swells up
and carries me away to the place I long to be,
where sky and sea merge in a grey-brown broth
until both are somehow lost from view to eyes
that no longer know if they are open or closed.
Darkening, thickening, the air becomes suddenly chilled, stilled, viscose,
requiring to be sipped rather than inhaled,
and soon may be sliced into thick, succulent wedges, slowly to be savored.
And here it comes. I watch it advancing on giant cotton toes,
a great, silent shaft of rain cloud arriving massive and resolute over the hills of Kilmun,
falling into and over itself, turning inside-out as it folds and rumbles,
bowls and bundles, rolls and tumbles down the forested hillside.
A vast vaporball, gaining velocity, gathering volume,
and absorbing the earthy, sticky-sweet scent of peat and pine resin on its way,
pouring down the hill, filling the belly of the valley,
over-spilling into the Holy Loch, pressing ahead, unimpeded, across the bay.
a great, silent shaft of rain cloud arriving massive and resolute over the hills of Kilmun,
falling into and over itself, turning inside-out as it folds and rumbles,
bowls and bundles, rolls and tumbles down the forested hillside.
A vast vaporball, gaining velocity, gathering volume,
and absorbing the earthy, sticky-sweet scent of peat and pine resin on its way,
pouring down the hill, filling the belly of the valley,
over-spilling into the Holy Loch, pressing ahead, unimpeded, across the bay.
And when its mass is all but upon us, the hissing of zillions of minute fizzing bubbles fills the air
before we are immersed in the broth…
wrapped in an organic, liquid blanket of cloud
so dense it muffles sound and occupies every corner of the perception till there is…
can be… nothing but that,
and the awareness that it is somehow impossible to forget the orientation of the sea.
And on and on for hours and hours and days and weeks,
until everyone has forgotten anything else has ever been, could ever be.
And one short mile further along the coast in the little town of Dunoon,
resilient blue patches bruise over, concede to the onslaught of gloom.
And when that drip-drip-drop becomes more seriously plop, and the sky darkens behind, everybody knows it won't be long,
and if they don't get inside, they'd better be dressed for, and expecting it.
Sh! Can you hear? Those first distinctive sounds. No longer in the distance, but all around.
In every forest, over every river and sea,
in every city and town in my memory the rain is starting.
Dropping at random, falling awry, like big, fat, bouncing, bedrunken bluebottle flies,
great voluptuous water-bombs of liquid crystal plummet, shuddering, from the sky,
undulating outrageously, bursting, exuberant and effervescent, into my eyes.
And as the water pours down over my cheeks and the rivulets reach my lips,
as if by some remembered, kindred reflex, a small pink tongue extends to catch the drips.
Drips which, in themselves, cannot but reminisce…their memory charged,
as clear as yesterday, with the haunting presence of their first love, first life…
3,500 million years ago, and the miraculous advent of microscopic bacteria.
And suddenly it's fully upon us.
Shoppers scatter in all directions, diving into doorways, cramming together under bus shelters.
Businessmen in suits and shiny shoes dash across roads between cars, grimacing,
with only a copy of "The Scotsman" to protect them from the elements.
Prepared and well rehearsed, mothers in sandals sigh, switch automatically into reverse, negotiating pushchairs, backwards, through the weighty swing doors of suddenly busy department stores,
while, outside in the besieged streets, old ladies are riding rodeo, holding on hard with white knuckles,
shocked and invigorated as the winds unleash the animal in their umbrellas and under their tweed skirts.
(Paris, France, April 1998)
Another place another time, behind the scenes, still mine,
already anchored in the day, some part of my mind is awake and getting on with business.
It is brokering the requirements of a day of formal meetings
against the need for wet weather clothes.
It is pondering, preparing, strategizing in the certainty of heavy traffic
and a journey through Paris that will be tedious.
All too soon my little pink Renault Twingo will join an endless flood of cars that will,
nose to tail, as dog to bitch, navigate the narrow city streets,
crashing through big black puddles that explode triumphantly,
throwing up dirty water onto freshly laundered, disgruntled pedestrians on their way to work,
not long awake, but already performing energetic gymnastics…
bounding away from the kerb-side at each oncoming car,
jumping the concierges' carpet damns,
alas not always able to avoid the stream of water
that every day flows along the caniveau
but today fancies itself a mighty torrent.
Just five more blissful minutes wrapped in downy dreams before I seize the day…
linear consciousness drifting away on a rising tide of water memory
where time and space fuse together,
and every configuration of place, époque and weather,
from here and there and then and now co-exist side by side,
their heads collide,
their contents meet
on the busy street of the continuity and simultaneity of life.
(Raubsville, PA, USA, May 2002)
Another time another place,
the swollen river, growing fat,
stretches wide her banks, a Delaware cat,
her tides rising, her rich brown waters soon to be breaking.
Endless meandering mother of the ages,
doing naturally that which she has done throughout time,
graciously receiving and ingesting death,
and of it, perpetuating life of every kind.
(East Molesey, Surrey, UK, 1965)
Eleven thirty in the 'stockbroker belt' several miles south west of London
and the skies remain obstinately dark.
In steaming classrooms, bright with neon, little girls giggle and squeal
as thunder rumbles overhead.
And though nothing can be seen through windows,
streaked and misted with rain and condensation,
the regular, distinctive shchhhrrr of big, rubbery bus tyres reminds those, still not quite dry,
of the shivery wet world to be faced again at four o'clock...
before we are immersed in the broth…
wrapped in an organic, liquid blanket of cloud
so dense it muffles sound and occupies every corner of the perception till there is…
can be… nothing but that,
and the awareness that it is somehow impossible to forget the orientation of the sea.
And on and on for hours and hours and days and weeks,
until everyone has forgotten anything else has ever been, could ever be.
And one short mile further along the coast in the little town of Dunoon,resilient blue patches bruise over, concede to the onslaught of gloom.
And when that drip-drip-drop becomes more seriously plop, and the sky darkens behind, everybody knows it won't be long,
and if they don't get inside, they'd better be dressed for, and expecting it.
Sh! Can you hear? Those first distinctive sounds. No longer in the distance, but all around.
In every forest, over every river and sea,
in every city and town in my memory the rain is starting.
Dropping at random, falling awry, like big, fat, bouncing, bedrunken bluebottle flies,
great voluptuous water-bombs of liquid crystal plummet, shuddering, from the sky,
undulating outrageously, bursting, exuberant and effervescent, into my eyes.
And as the water pours down over my cheeks and the rivulets reach my lips,
as if by some remembered, kindred reflex, a small pink tongue extends to catch the drips.
Drips which, in themselves, cannot but reminisce…their memory charged,
as clear as yesterday, with the haunting presence of their first love, first life…
3,500 million years ago, and the miraculous advent of microscopic bacteria.
And suddenly it's fully upon us.
Shoppers scatter in all directions, diving into doorways, cramming together under bus shelters.
Businessmen in suits and shiny shoes dash across roads between cars, grimacing,
with only a copy of "The Scotsman" to protect them from the elements.
Prepared and well rehearsed, mothers in sandals sigh, switch automatically into reverse, negotiating pushchairs, backwards, through the weighty swing doors of suddenly busy department stores,
while, outside in the besieged streets, old ladies are riding rodeo, holding on hard with white knuckles,
shocked and invigorated as the winds unleash the animal in their umbrellas and under their tweed skirts.
(Paris, France, April 1998)
Another place another time, behind the scenes, still mine,
already anchored in the day, some part of my mind is awake and getting on with business.
It is brokering the requirements of a day of formal meetings
against the need for wet weather clothes.
It is pondering, preparing, strategizing in the certainty of heavy traffic
and a journey through Paris that will be tedious.
All too soon my little pink Renault Twingo will join an endless flood of cars that will,
nose to tail, as dog to bitch, navigate the narrow city streets,
crashing through big black puddles that explode triumphantly,
throwing up dirty water onto freshly laundered, disgruntled pedestrians on their way to work,
not long awake, but already performing energetic gymnastics…
bounding away from the kerb-side at each oncoming car,
jumping the concierges' carpet damns,
alas not always able to avoid the stream of water
that every day flows along the caniveau
but today fancies itself a mighty torrent.
Just five more blissful minutes wrapped in downy dreams before I seize the day…
linear consciousness drifting away on a rising tide of water memory
where time and space fuse together,
and every configuration of place, époque and weather,
from here and there and then and now co-exist side by side,
their heads collide,
their contents meet
on the busy street of the continuity and simultaneity of life.
(Raubsville, PA, USA, May 2002)
Another time another place,
the swollen river, growing fat,
stretches wide her banks, a Delaware cat,
her tides rising, her rich brown waters soon to be breaking.
Endless meandering mother of the ages,
doing naturally that which she has done throughout time,
graciously receiving and ingesting death,
and of it, perpetuating life of every kind.
(East Molesey, Surrey, UK, 1965)
Eleven thirty in the 'stockbroker belt' several miles south west of London
and the skies remain obstinately dark.
In steaming classrooms, bright with neon, little girls giggle and squeal
as thunder rumbles overhead.
And though nothing can be seen through windows,
streaked and misted with rain and condensation,the regular, distinctive shchhhrrr of big, rubbery bus tyres reminds those, still not quite dry,
of the shivery wet world to be faced again at four o'clock...
Having received a good dousing on the way to school
and subsequently confined to classrooms,
the children have become giddy and silly,
their hysteria increasing incrementally
in relation to the diminishing patience of their teachers
and fuelled by the prospect of wet weather lunch procedures.
The building is electric with energy
and pungent with the smell of damp wool,
as pullovers and socks gradually relinquish the humidity that seeped in through coats
now hanging heavy and stiff in the cloakroom, and though shoes
that will continue to bubble and squelch delightfully throughout the day.
The time-worn floors of the assembly hall and hundreds of desks and chairs
absorb the dampness, and in return release the familiar, comforting odor of old wet wood
known to so many generations of children,
while the sensible, savory smells of meat pie and boiled cabbage
fill the corridors as they have for a hundred years.
(Prestwich, Manchester, UK, 1982)
An elastic snap and I am back in Manchester,
faithful host to the rain.
5:30 of a weekday morning,
waiting, timely, at my first bus stop,
my long dark hair still dripping from the shower
having fallen into ringlets, now icing over,
clanging gently together in the freezing rain,
and please may the bus be on time.
Four stops down the road, a small bent figure in a flat cap hoists himself up onto the 96.
"G'mornin' driver!"
The bus pulls out brusquely shunting him up the aisle.
He grabs a post to the right, a seatback to the left,
finally falling, gratefully, into the vacant seat next to me,
expelling air with a great "puff!" and showering me with water from his raincoat.
"Oof! 'Allo Jan! Kiss!" He double-points to his cheek with a crooked, directive finger.
I lean over and place a dutiful peck on his crinkled skin.
"Lousy morning again. Soakin' wet. Soakin' bloody wet.
Walls a’ wet. Furniture's wet. Beddin's wet.
Never a chance to dry stuff out round 'ere.
And look at you gel! Wet 'air again and still no 'at!
'Ow many times do I 'ave to tell yer? Sixty percent o' yer body 'eat escapes through yer 'ed.
Yer a fool unto yersel'. Ye'll 'ave chronic bronchitis before ye know it,
and then ye'll 'ave the pleasure o' bein' short o' breath, like me, f' the rest o' yer life!
Short o' breath an' soaking bloody wet."
And one day, as every day, between two bus stops,
head down, eyes scrunched, shoulder to the weather,
climbing the hill and over the bridge,
the wind came up and wheeched his flat cap out into the darkness,
and down into the black canal below…
and I realized… shocked and open-mouthed like a child before absolute nudity…
that in all the time I'd known him,
I had never before seen his naked white scalp!
(The Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK, 1961)
A moment later, in my childhood home of Rothesay,
a small, plumpish girl stands on a slippery rostrum in a kilt and dance pumps
beneath the teaming rain, her hair scooped up high, tied tight with ribbon
and nailed to her head with "Kirby" grips.
An expression of intense concentration occupies her streaming wet face as she
strains not to look down at the crossed swords beneath her clumsy, bounding feet,
her ribbons bedraggled, pigtails fallen and dripping, her head filled with counting,
and her soul at one with the haunting bagpipe.
(I-78 East, Clinton, New Jersey, USA, November 2002)
And I could have stayed there forever dancing,
but am startled from my reverie somewhere before the New Jersey Turnpike.
A horn – urgent – repetitive - critically discordant, as I am inhaled dangerously close
to the thundering wheels of a gargantuan truck… then another, and another.
Thousands of tons of steel hurtling break-neck through filthy weather…
vast racing cargo ships, throwing up solid walls of water in their huge wake,
in which tiny cars are tossed about like chips in the gutter…flimsy sailboats
with soft-shelled captains, tacking their way to life or death between pitiless, mighty tyrants.
(New York, USA, Paris, France, Dunoon, Scotland, UK)
Perspiring, exhausted, the storm subsiding,
I emerge from the Lincoln Tunnel at the Pont de l'Alma,
and inch into the Place de la Concorde,
where traffic - needless to say - is at a standstill.
Rising from the depths of dreaming, aware of the discrepancy,
I feel I brace myself a little, knowing I must go there soon…
Safe now, in my little pink car, I light a cigarette and turn patiently,
absent-mindedly to stare through the window out across the bay…
and subsequently confined to classrooms,
the children have become giddy and silly,
their hysteria increasing incrementally
in relation to the diminishing patience of their teachers
and fuelled by the prospect of wet weather lunch procedures.
The building is electric with energy
and pungent with the smell of damp wool,
as pullovers and socks gradually relinquish the humidity that seeped in through coats
now hanging heavy and stiff in the cloakroom, and though shoes
that will continue to bubble and squelch delightfully throughout the day.
The time-worn floors of the assembly hall and hundreds of desks and chairs
absorb the dampness, and in return release the familiar, comforting odor of old wet wood
known to so many generations of children,
while the sensible, savory smells of meat pie and boiled cabbage
fill the corridors as they have for a hundred years.
(Prestwich, Manchester, UK, 1982)
An elastic snap and I am back in Manchester,
faithful host to the rain.
5:30 of a weekday morning,
waiting, timely, at my first bus stop,
my long dark hair still dripping from the shower
having fallen into ringlets, now icing over,
clanging gently together in the freezing rain,
and please may the bus be on time.
Four stops down the road, a small bent figure in a flat cap hoists himself up onto the 96.
"G'mornin' driver!"
The bus pulls out brusquely shunting him up the aisle.
He grabs a post to the right, a seatback to the left,
finally falling, gratefully, into the vacant seat next to me,
expelling air with a great "puff!" and showering me with water from his raincoat.
"Oof! 'Allo Jan! Kiss!" He double-points to his cheek with a crooked, directive finger.
I lean over and place a dutiful peck on his crinkled skin.
"Lousy morning again. Soakin' wet. Soakin' bloody wet.
Walls a’ wet. Furniture's wet. Beddin's wet.
Never a chance to dry stuff out round 'ere.
And look at you gel! Wet 'air again and still no 'at!
'Ow many times do I 'ave to tell yer? Sixty percent o' yer body 'eat escapes through yer 'ed.
Yer a fool unto yersel'. Ye'll 'ave chronic bronchitis before ye know it,
and then ye'll 'ave the pleasure o' bein' short o' breath, like me, f' the rest o' yer life!
Short o' breath an' soaking bloody wet."
And one day, as every day, between two bus stops,
head down, eyes scrunched, shoulder to the weather,
climbing the hill and over the bridge,
the wind came up and wheeched his flat cap out into the darkness,
and down into the black canal below…
and I realized… shocked and open-mouthed like a child before absolute nudity…
that in all the time I'd known him,
I had never before seen his naked white scalp!
(The Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK, 1961)A moment later, in my childhood home of Rothesay,
a small, plumpish girl stands on a slippery rostrum in a kilt and dance pumps
beneath the teaming rain, her hair scooped up high, tied tight with ribbon
and nailed to her head with "Kirby" grips.
An expression of intense concentration occupies her streaming wet face as she
strains not to look down at the crossed swords beneath her clumsy, bounding feet,
her ribbons bedraggled, pigtails fallen and dripping, her head filled with counting,
and her soul at one with the haunting bagpipe.
(I-78 East, Clinton, New Jersey, USA, November 2002)
And I could have stayed there forever dancing,
but am startled from my reverie somewhere before the New Jersey Turnpike.
A horn – urgent – repetitive - critically discordant, as I am inhaled dangerously close
to the thundering wheels of a gargantuan truck… then another, and another.
Thousands of tons of steel hurtling break-neck through filthy weather…
vast racing cargo ships, throwing up solid walls of water in their huge wake,
in which tiny cars are tossed about like chips in the gutter…flimsy sailboats
with soft-shelled captains, tacking their way to life or death between pitiless, mighty tyrants.
(New York, USA, Paris, France, Dunoon, Scotland, UK)Perspiring, exhausted, the storm subsiding,
I emerge from the Lincoln Tunnel at the Pont de l'Alma,
and inch into the Place de la Concorde,
where traffic - needless to say - is at a standstill.
Rising from the depths of dreaming, aware of the discrepancy,
I feel I brace myself a little, knowing I must go there soon…
Safe now, in my little pink car, I light a cigarette and turn patiently,
absent-mindedly to stare through the window out across the bay…
but there's still no sign of Gourock emerging from those muddy skies.
And suddenly, a tiny corner of the huge woolen grey curtain lifts a fraction,
and there hangs the Kirk of St. Mun
And suddenly, a tiny corner of the huge woolen grey curtain lifts a fraction,
and there hangs the Kirk of St. Mun
teetering on the edge of an invisible peninsula,
a finger of sunlight very specifically upon it,
a finger of sunlight very specifically upon it, contrasted against the blackened skies,
a shining arrow of hope transpiercing a double rainbow,
with colors as rich as the heath.
a shining arrow of hope transpiercing a double rainbow,
with colors as rich as the heath.
© Janice Johnston Howie 2002
