Rain by Carol Ann Duffy
Rain
Carol Ann DuffyNot so hot as this for a hundred years.
You were where I was going. I was in tears.
I surrendered my heart to the judgement of my peers.A century’s heat in the garden, fierce as love.
You returned on the day I had to leave.
I mimed the full, rich, busy life I had to live.Hotter than hell. I burned for you day and night;
got bits of your body wrong, bits of it right,
in the huge mouth of the dark, in the bite of the light.I planted a rose, burnt orange, the colour of flame,
gave it the last of the water, gave it your name.
It flared back at the sun in a perfect rhyme.Then the rain came, like stammered kisses at first
on the back of my neck. I unfurled my fist
for the rain to caress with its lips. I turned up my face,and water flooded my mouth, baptised my head,
and the rainclouds gathered like midnight overhead,
and the rain came down like a lover comes to a bed.
MARGINALIA
Listening to Philip Glass’ Mad Rush, one of the most calming pieces I’ve ever listened to. It quiets my soul. I am sitting in your car, in the passenger seat. The evening is gentle, the breeze a caress. It ruffles my hair, kisses my nape. I lean my head, my hand out the window in the wind. We were flying on a road that never ends. Like the time when we were on a boat, along the river, my fingers grazing the water, as light as your fingers on my cheek.
endnotes
Read more works by Carol Ann Duffy • Find books by this poet • Or view my library
Explore poems in pursuit of: desire • intimacy • rain • Or browse the index
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melanie
what does carol ann duffys poem mean?
Liza
I’ve been trying to figure out the meaning of this poem but I’m having a hard time, anyone care to help????
Jeannie
In poetry, it is not so much the meaning that makes the poem, it’s the telling and the hearing that gives the poem its meaning.