Shadows and Rain

Silken soft the sun glides, rustling her quiet fingers through
the falling leaves in sparks of yellow, green and red.

Pushed aside by the heavy curtains of charcoal gray rain,
the sun takes her leave to try again another day.

Hard like a hammer and nails, the rain pounds the soft, wet grass,
scaring into the ground all creatures small and frail.

Shadows walking their steely boots crack across the land,
draining all colour and hope with their hard clenched hands.

"Violence masks itself through lies, and lies can only keep
their mask through violence", Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn knew this well.


Shadows and rain, standing shoulder to shoulder in menacing refrain,
the shepherds weary flee their flock, and in come the wolves, teeth bare and red.

All hail the dead, all scorn the free spirits who question the fists,
only those who know how to sing in silence and fly on invisible wings will stay free.

Shadows and rain, drowning out all colours that are not gray,
all voices that are not mute, all eyes that are not blind, all ears that are not deaf.

" Pourquoi cette pluie ?" asks the poet Idir in one of his soul piercing songs.
We should be careful that we, too, soon will not be asking why so much has gone wrong.

Bless the poets and the innocents, may they not be abandoned for their fire and their courage,
for it is they who will collect the ashes, hoping a phoenix takes mercy on the broken lives and broken dreams.



Trudi Ralston.
October 18th, 2016.