June Segment - Weather and Orange Forms

Nell Gwynn


This month we were much cheered on a gloomy morning by the glowing colours of Orange Form by Richard Smith and The Mistral  by Carl Rowe. Both prints are abstract so the responses to them were as varied as the writers themselves. They included haystacks, anger, the joy of painting, storms and memories of the warm south.... As they both had weather connotations a poem I paired them with was April Rain Song by Langston Hughes.  We also had Buddy Holly singing It's Raining in My Heart and Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing Beautiful Rain. I agree with those who say that if you're going to get on in England it's as well to learn to like rain.  
Then we had fun with weather metaphors - all those proverbs and expressions that relate to the emotional weather. Too many to list here. By the time we packed up the Sun had got his hat on!


Some of the writing ......

Hay Ho!

Yvette Sutton

The girls giggled and the boys raced to the door, there was real excitement in the air.  It was that time of the year when the hay was cut and thick dust blew in the wind alongside the swarms of insects which were highlighted by the warm sun.

A picnic was packed and the warm bread fresh from the oven was wrapped in a checked cloth and lay on the top of the basket concealing the array of wonderful food beneath.

This would be the last year that Melody would help her father as she was soon to leave for boarding school.  Help was always on hand from neighbouring farms and that would mean that their next door neighbour’s son Tom would be there.  Friends since they were toddlers, Melody hoped that this would be the day he noticed her, he was the love of her life. 

The day unfolded and the stack got higher and ladders were needed now.  By dusk it was a perfect shape and as Tom and melody sat on top of the warm hay exhausted, the bats darted eating food with sonic precision.

Tom’s arm rounded Melody’s shoulders and it could be said that a good day had been had by all as night fell and peace reclaimed its rightful place.

We had some positive responses to English rain.  Maybe this has to do with the recent decision to declare a drought!!  The heavens obligingly opened as soon as it became official. 

A Strange Phenomenon

Catherine King

We left the house at 8 am

We left for the bus, up the lane

We left quite calm, in routine

Up the steps

Down the drive

Then startled,

A shower of drops

Just on us!

We look up  - a tree

We look down – dry ground

We look at each other – weird.

We both surmise,

The leaves, each one

Cupping night’s raindrops

Were tipped

By the breeze

Just on us!

We grin at each other

We go on up the dry lane

We’re lighter in step.