Petrichor

I was at Matt MacDonald's launch of his new book of poems, Petrichor, today. He asked the audience if anyone knew what the word meant, and I said yes, having been told the word when Eleanor Livingstone and I were representing Scotland at an international poetry festival in Lithuania. I wrote a poem inspired by the experience, and it was published in The floorshow at the Mad Yak Cafe in 2010.

Petrichor
for Eleanor

Harsh cries from the trees, troll and ogre visions,
idylls, nightmares, signless tracks, waterbirds, frogs
pumping grunge for a zippy dragonfly.

The wind drops; sky is painted colourless;
woods fill with sudden mosquitoes
a nearby smoker’s fumes don’t dispel.

Sound of coalescing drops on plastic roof,
monoblocs darken. There must be a name
for the smell of first rain on warm stone.

Soil absorbs the early drops,
liquid films particles, begins to flow
through interstitial space.

Plant roots extend tentative hairs,
probe initial water, test its extent,
uncommitted, pending proof of shower’s half-life.

Everybody says it’s needed, s’been too long dry,
but there’s a sense of something ending:
not summer, but sunny certainties.



Colin Will
Alausyne, Lithuania, 14:06:08
Published in The floorshow at the Mad Yak Café, Red Squirrel Press, 2010