Just After The Rain

Just After The Rain

It’s a misty monochrome morning

just after the rain,

darkness like some Lithgow coal miner's

drab woollen scarf

still stubbornly clings to the low cloud base,

which beheads the taller trees

saturating, smothering the mountain

with a gloomy grey bonnet,

its matching damp overcoat

enshrouds the undergrowth

dripping and dribbling incessantly.

It’s a misty monochrome morning

rain’s remnants roll

gracefully down, around and under

lichen clad branches,

skate across narrow eucalypt leaves

and with nowhere else to go

collect en masse until,

through their own accumulated weight,

they plip plop drop rhythmically

splash the sodden mulch below

initiate new flows of mountain life.

It’s a misty monochrome morning

secluded chasms

accentuate the sound of lonely ASICS Airmax

slapping sloppy gravel

slurping, sliding, slipping

through the meandering muddy wash

as relentlessly it scurries

scouring, eroding

the corrugated sandstone track,

its chosen drainage channel

to its mother creek below.

It’s a misty monochrome morning

a sneaky sunbeam

infiltrates the fog foreshortened horizon

momentarily illuminates

spectacular spider web chandeliers

suspended skillfully between high branches

trapped raindrop baubles,

transparent captives,

glistening across the valley

like dangling glow worms

deep in dark Jenolan Caves

It’s a misty monochrome morning

at the viewing ledge,

the invisible sounds of a rampaging creek

and the pounding roar of its self sacrifice

mystically, musically vanish

through the drizzling dampness

in sensual counterpoint

into the valley void below;

truly nothing else compares to the

morning mood of my Mountains Blue

just after the rain.