DRIVING RAIN

i am transported to another place
the fragile calm of the snow
her delicate swirling flakes
her frosty embrace
her soft yielding crunch
erased
washed away
by the raw power of a different element

the pure white cityscape suddenly rendered naked

as incongruous as lady godiva on her horse

the rains have descended in gusting torrents
waterlogging the fields
flooding the ditches, brooks and streams
now all that remains of our garden snowman
is a bedraggled scarf-draped termite hill
yet this must come as some relief
to the food and water-starved creatures
precariously clinging to invernal survival
the moles that penetrate the unfrozen crust
the thrushes that tug at elastic band worms
the moorhens that peck holes in the cellophane lake
out of hibernation come us humans too
back on the highways and byways with a new vengeance
the sunday drivers displaying their creed for speed
who have no time for or interest in the here and now
as the tarmac blurs by beneath our feet
as the tyres spraypaint mud and gravel on a roadside canvas
as an oily patch reflects a myriad psychedelic colours
and then is gone
as the trees and buildings and fields and hedgerows
all speed effortlessly by
our minds are already fixed on other vistas
on what lies around the next corner
or over the brow of the next hill
on the next mile covered
the next acquisition or conquest
the next notch on the bedpost
but has it not ever occurred to us
that one day there may be no more distance left to run?