Talking About the Weather

 

People say it’s boring

To talk about the weather –

The way the crystals of the early snow

Are gilded by the welcome light of dawn

Before it melts them like a metaphor;

 

Or how the warming of the April ground

Unlocks a fragrance that the winter hid:

A smell of lush decay, in which the breath

Of all the forest is exhaled at last;

 

All this is boring.

Let’s not speak of it.

Let’s talk of politicians, rising stocks,

The fashionable new way to wear a scarf,

And every minor health complaint there is.

 

Meanwhile, somewhere, quite unseen by us,

A boring cloud making its boring way

Across dull heaven is transfixed with light –

With sharply-boring radiance, and on the ground

A deer looks up into the golden ray –

Not bored, not talking, but awash in grace.