Rainmakers

The sky scrapes by like a xylophone
and we shake our bottles,
waiting for the sound of rice –

relentless, relentless

or rain, which when it came,
turned the world to poster paint
till only sealed flat blue remained.

Do you remember the taste of clouds?
They sung a capella, chasing
each other across clear days,
strung out like a necklace or a
metronome.

Mackerel-backed stratus with a gold
taste of melting caramel at sunset.

Cumulonimbus, rolling round
like a gobstopper, filling the mouth
with kettledrums, dying our tongues black.

Nimbostratus, clichéd like candy floss,
popping along the airplane tracks.

Cirrocumulus, sherbet sheep
of fairy tales, blown away descant
like dandelion seeds.

Ancient cirrostratus, cold like an ice-pop,
line-drawing the airy sky with high notes.

Rainmakers

Bottles are noiseless, empty echo chambers.
We hope our clouds will somewhere catch on strings,
wash up on land where sound has not yet drowned.