Page 58 - HEF Pen & Ink 2022

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Summer Rain By Ella Shropshire
There is a house,
Mud-built walls, sturdy, with a roof of straw,
With a garden full of uprooted wildflowers
Where we all rest our heads on pillows and blankets and coats and cushions
Made into nests on the floor,
Where a stream trickles at the front step and lulls us to sleep,
It runs straight into the woods around our little hamlet, runs through fields and towns and cities
Until it feels the sea’s cold saltwater embrace
The sea pays us a visit when it rains, hard in the summer, softer in fall,
All of us huddle neath the overhanging roof,
Counting down and jumping into the rain,
Dancing in the puddles and falling drops
All of us together in the first bleed of sunset,
Laughing in the kitchen, stirring, and kneading and stealing bites of dinner
Eaten in candlelight round an old table worn smooth
By our rough hands that it used to fill with splinters.
Some of us will leave,
Chasing the moon and the sun across the world,
Splitting off to the west and east, north and south,
And come back again,
Down the forest road some cold, clear dawn
With a fardel string over their backs and a face cracked wide with a smile.
Some of us will stay forever,
Planting pumpkins and carrots and sweet peas,
Carving paintings into the walls,
Tending quietly to the hearth, sitting by the fire long past midnight with ink-stained hands and fingers,
Spending day after blissful day
free and at peace in the early sun.
And so we come and go and come home again,
On and on down the long years,
And on some far-off night, we’ll all be together once more,
In warm sunset candlelight
To take up each other’s hands,
Knowing that despite the distance we were always holding them,
And laughing, jump into the rainstorm.