Somber Summer Clouds

Leaving home is difficult. On Chelsea’s first day working for The Argus, she found a hidden archive written by someone from her home country. She decided to publish one of her own pieces side by side.

Somber summer clouds. 

Meant to mean well but you never know. 

A few specks of orange and yellow. 

Littered here… 

Littered there.

But the grey and black clouds are rumbling. 

Plump with rain and bitter feeling,

Eager to take their rightful place as the season changes. 

The birds and bees seek shelter and hide,

The droplets sting the petals,

And instead the flowers smile, 

For the drink of water that blesses Mother Earth from Heaven. 

Rain pattering on my galvanized roof sings lullabies to me in my sleep.

The sounds of my childhood. 

All I have ever known is the sun and rain.

Soon I’ll experience new seasons, 

Autumn, Winter and finally Spring.

But the rain is the same everywhere. 

The same droplet that found my hair at home, will find me again in Canada. 

We will reunite as long lost friends,

And cry as if meeting each other for the last time. 

How can something so beautiful be so morbid?

So nurturing and gentle, but not quite. 

Chelsea Warren

Monday 13 September 2021. 

The Argus Student Newspaper, 1967