Poem of the week : The Rain in Cushendall
(a poem with a hat tipped to The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins)
The Rain in Cushendall,
in language stone auld; cheek chiseling
someone once kissed it with their eyes,
went blind. Stout pearls
daft enough to taste it, skin bearers left reeling:
tongue cannae bruise cin it?
Full metal jacket rain, porridging the soil,
missiling into Cottage Wood’s darkest fissure.
Rain to rattle the rhododendron
out its floral hubris, slake the thirst
of every tentacle, gush the sycamore’s nest
of knots. An Irish hare
with two dead legs limps beyond its shooting range.