Friday Poetry: Alice Oswald

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend. I have had a lovely day which has included some quality reading.

My chosen poem today is by the poet Alice Oswald (1966). Oswald is an English poet who worked as a gardener before becoming a writer.

A Short Story of Falling

It is the story of the falling rain
to turn into a leaf and fall again. 

it is the secret of a summer shower
to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary
that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale
hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass
as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip
turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance
the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthly-strong
and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue
to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain
that rises to the light and falls again. 

Alice Oswald

Happy Reading