confidence_in_the_roof leni cats and dogs bucketing down, when i was young, drumming on the corrugated iron sheeting, water beating like tarzan, barrelling down the gutters like bowling balls i knew where the leak was; only one: over the fireplace where the chimney was put in, drip, drip, drip; will you empty the bucket? but i felt safe; the house was small, old, crooked - each room at a diffrernt angle - but the roof was strong nothing to do, nowhere to go, just sit at a desk wrapped in, trapped in, that rain so many years, unfaltering trust until the rain stopped and we forgot what it was what it meant then, when thunder and lightning flashed in the afternoon i saw forteen year old boys ducking and frightened at a bus stop, and i laughed at them inside they had never sat in a black living room as lightning shredded the sky, thunder ripped open the quiet and white flashes allowed glimpes of the furniture and beating rain - every night - they had no trust that they would be okay, though lightning had struck beside and across from them and all around them many a time no, they were scared and i, i had no trust in the rooves anymore, for they had forgotten what rain was; they had forgotten they were supposed to keep it out, and so they let it dribble through and between their cracked, worn tiles and backflow from their gutters to soak their ceilings and allow drip, drip, drip, anywhere, then harbour the patterns of mould, spreading like the tree of life in pressed representation, they allowed themselves to be weakened by water i find myself afraid i long for those rain days - they were days of rain. weeks, months. years. of rain. 061004 what's it to you? who go blather from