Night Rain

The sound of rain falling in the deep night is a reminder that every now and then the world needs washing. The dirty streets littered with our selfish striving and strewn with the harshest words, dropped casually during the day, need to be cleaned. Hopes forcibly squeezed out and dreams stolen wait to be washed into drains, longing to be recycled and fed back in sleep’s stories. Prayers of the ones no longer here descend to rattle against our walls and fences, some seep through gaps and splits to water shoots of memory. Fall night rain fall.

Are we insignificant?

Sometimes I feel so insignificant,

When I look out across great horizons,
See how simple water shapes monumental lands,

A breath of air cuts rocks to ribbons,

A few degrees smashes our hardest endeavours.

Sometimes I wonder whether we are just hitchhikers,

Parasites crawling through the coat of this planet,

Irritants yes, but specks of sand easily blown.
Insects with exoskeletons grown from misplaced pride,

We make this world twitch and writhe but for how long?
We dig deep though, rooting our egos in the earth.

Sucking nourishment from its core,

Hammering piles into its substructure,

Fighting to control its rhythms, regulate its pulse,

Make it beat to our time signature.

If we cannot make it dance our dance,

We will not be insignificant,

We will blame it when it fights back,

We will name its ways horrors,

We will drink it dry and sup it bare,

We will not be insignificant,

We cannot stand it.

We will kill it for our convenience and say it doesn’t matter!

We will look out across the great horizons,

And say the sun will rise, the sun will set,

What are we but creatures, tiny creatures,

What are we but passengers on this mighty beast.

I wish that we were insignificant.