Cloudy sky – a dirty grey.
Oppressive heat.
Almost dark: the end of day.
Men walk past on busy feet.
A light drizzle.
Sooty exhaust from a car.
Suddenly a gust
of wind, blowing dust
all over the place. While from far
the rhythmic whizzings of a train.
Lightning. Thunder. And rain.
1994
Loving your turn — or return — into poetry. This one really captures the sense of a storm gathering, slowly approaching and building, then breaking loose. One of my favorite experiences, one that touches a deep and primordial part of my soul.
Thanks, Gary. The inspiration behind this poem was the first of T S Eliot’s “Preludes”. When I was a freshman (or first year, as we say in India) student in college, I tutored/mentored a high school kid. I only did it for a few months then I couldn’t spare any more time. The poem was in his English book and by way of discussing it with him, it inspired me. A few months later–after I had stopped tutoring him–on a cloudy, stormy evening as I sat in my dorm room, looking out at the weather, this poem came to me. I would say about twenty-four years ago.
I strongly recommend the Preludes, if you haven’t read them already.
By the way, I still have not been getting email notices of other comments and replies, even though I always check the little box indicating I want them. The only way I know whether you comment on my comment is by checking back here manually. (But I realize glitches like this can be maddening to troubleshoot…)
I have no idea what would cause it and how to solve it really. I can’t even “like” the comments that people leave here. That star there, I know it used to work. But for the last year or so every time I click it, it turns gold and then reverts to blue promptly and the “like” doesn’t register. It has probably got something to do with the plugins, settings, themes &etc. These are all part of the reason I have been mulling the switch to Squarespace.
Curiouser and curiouser. I can “like” your comments (although, truthfully, I never before noticed that option. I’m fairly sure I don’t have that feature in my own blog’s comments, and perhaps should look for a way to turn it on.
I only found out because I am notified time to time that somebody liked my blog post… So I looked around to see what button they must have clicked, as it is not the obvious ones. Then I saw the star. Twitter used to have a star instead of a heart not too long ago.
Okay, so just now I found out that I can log in through WordPress.com (which in my case, I have linked to my website account) and like your comments!
Yes, and I am now getting notifications of your “likes” for those. I guess maybe that is a Jetpack function? Given time, I’ll look for it and see if I can activate it on my own site.