goldfinches
Rainfinches
Dreary, damp, drizzle day
Clouds reach out to touch
The silty ground. The sky so close
And this weather suits the ducks 
Rain-bathing quite predictably
As, you might have guessed, do I

The sodden blades of sun-dried grass 
Tangled in meadow dreadlocks
Fall away from the reservoir
Mingled with nettles, bindweed and dock
Rest their weight on a neighbour's spine
And bed in, ready for the flood to rise

Rainfinches, ashen-faced and daubed
With streaks of running raindrops
Flash black and yellow wings in flight
Then dangle from the knapweed tops
Taking purple petals from the wild flowerbed
Flown in from the rainbow to be adored

Making the sound of twinkling stars
Bursting baubles and tinsel
And eagerly turning about their heads 
For a look around between mouthfulls
They natter and gossip like cafe regulars
Local characters, loyal customers

Goldfinches, of course — "Rainfinch" was a ploy
To bring the eye to bear
On the delicious blend of bird and brush
In the damp, uncertain, distorted air
Taking feather for leaf and seed for eye
Half red faces become poppies

Likewise long-tailed, blue and great tits
Sibilate at one with their London plane 
Rinsed out by rain and the lemon wash
Of youth that turns their blues to green-greys
One flits to ground and wrestles a stick
For its cargo of insect tidbits

In a handsome hunt house martins weave
A sieve above the trees
Though hydrophobic gnats
Keep their counsel beneath the leaves
The riot of raindrops threatening limb and life
Not to mention the local hirundine riff-raff

Then...
    

    ... all is deadened and quiet
Bird and branch and drip
Have sighted a diamond-winged dragon's advance
Fearing this terror is but the tip
Of as dark an end as they see in sight
The beautiful hobby rains disquiet

But from whence it came, thence it left
Sleek and deadly sky snake
The earthly scene exhales and invites
The rainfinch jewels back to make
From one rain-lover to another, a gift
A charm for the rainy days I've lived
rainy scene
Main image credit