Weather and Landscape are One

In this poem I  have, (not for the first time), exaggerated the amount of rainfall we get in Ireland; I tend to for its evocativeness. It creates a sense of the ethereal, lifting the earth into the clouds,  thereby releasing all the spirits of the air onto the land. And I do believe that that closeness to the clouds has fuelled the famous imagination of  Irish writers and story-tellers over the millennia. (Those wraith-like shapes of clouds drifting slowly across fields, through lonely valleys, tangling in stunted hawthorns, could hardly fail to impress lively, often superstitious imaginations).  I also believe that the meeting of earth and sky, its ever-changing panoramas, contributes hugely to the spectacle and beauty of  Irish scenery.

Here, weather and landscape are one:

the squall-flayed hills,

wind-warped thorns,

lightless grey limestone.  

Even in summer

the fluke-ridden fields,  

drizzle-drowned hillsides,

midge-infested boglands  

groan beneath sagging clouds;

and if there are spells

of sun-burst in the furze,

they are too quickly muzzled with rain.