Rain

There is a title I have never yet used that remains nonetheless in my head: It rained when it should have snowed. There is rain all round my house here in Highland Scotland tonight: there has been not a sign of frost yet. I find it strange how people react to what is an undoubted change: they're grateful for mild days. So are the tabloid newspapers, rejoicing over the hottest July day and exulting the fact that the temperature in London has broken all records. It rained when it should have snowed. Yes, in my childhood there would have been snow in the hills by now; our nights would have been frosty. Most years the snow lay for at least two weeks: I built a slide in my garden and, like every other boy since time began, I bewailed the final melting of the ice. Now we are shocked when the ice is there for more than a few days: it is almost as though something has gone wrong. No, it is the mildness that is wrong. A few years ago I spoke with a man on the west coast of Greenland who showed me the bit of coast beyond his window where he had grown up. Once upon a time there was thick ice in winter, he told me: we used to drive over the ice to visit friends, he said. Now there is no more ice: it retreats ten miles further north each year. It rained when it should have snowed. And will anything be done about the melting at the Paris summit? I fear we'll make promises that we'll change our ways by 2020 or 2045: the deadline will be pushed on a little further yet again. As it rains when it should snow.


AFTER THE STORM

The valley lay in the window
Dazed and damaged.

The river horsed under bridges
Swirling with earth and rain.

The fields were filled with mirrors, glass stretches
Reflecting a breaking sky.

The house was silent, left unhumming -
We were powerless, there was nothing we could do.


(From Kenneth Steven's collection Coracle, published by SPCK in London).