April Showers by Helen Moore.

Helen Moore is a poet/environmental artist-writer. Characterizing her approach as 'Art for Earth's Sake', she views her practice as a form of activism, raising ecological awareness and envisioning a sustainable future. She has been guest poetry editor of Resurgence Magazine and regularly shares her eco-poems at environmental events and conferences throughout the UK. Helen's poetry and prose have appeared in various journals and anthologies, and this year she is publishing her first children's book, Hope and the Magic Martian, about climate change.

Her website is: www.natures-words.co.uk

April Showers

In my heart there are still downpours -
sudden potency suffusing the sky above the hills,
and its release, merciful lashings, beneath which the trees
bend and sway, spread their tender leaves,
showers that soon pass.

And after the rain the Sun,
the air refreshed, the liquid furnishings of birds;
snagged in hedgerow-nets a thousand stars,
seeds of life dripping onto beds of mossy stone,
where grasses raise lush curtains,
and ruby-spotted Cowslips rest, waiting
for the long, slim tongues of their lovers
to return.

Yet here, now,
all day like June's flame the Sun smoulders.
Beneath my boots the earth is cracked, dusty,
and the pasture where the Ewes spent March
is shorn, parched, barren.