Verse: James

My grandfather
once told me
he could predict
the weather simply
by observing the flow
of the lake

if the waves
nudged by the wind
had a northerly flow
rain was sure to come
and if they travelled south
we would have sun

My grandfather told me
many things
in his sitting room
over a steady diet
of tobacco and
heavily steeped tea
that reeked of tannic acid
most of them
I've forgotten

but in all that time
I never thought to ask him
what it meant
when the lake
was as still
as a midnight cemetery
and the only movement
was the reflected wisps
of clouds floating by