Childhood Memories From A Belfast Front Window

Drizzle, deceptive and subtle, soaks everything it touches, Seeps through crack and crevice, There’s a sense of permanence, this could last forever.

Sometimes there’s a soft rain.

Downpours bounce Off cement and paving slab, Splatter and splash back, Kinetic, hypnotic, repetitious beauty But no two patterns are the same.

Snowfalls, flurries, irregular ornamentations on the air, Swirl earthward, not far to fall now, Will it lie?

Ice, rare, Stalactites of frozen water dangle from cast iron lampposts, (Be careful, if go out you might slip and fall, say the old ones), Advice as water on a duck’s back. We kids make slides in the street Steel shods on hobnail boots Stooped or on our hunkers, GlIde in the ethereal light of the gas lamps.