Show A SUDDEN SHOWER I Barefooted boys scud up the street Or skurry under sheltering sheds And schoolgirl faces pale and sweet Gleam from the shawls about their heads Doors bang and mothervoices call From alien homes and rusty gates Are slammed and high above It all The thunder grim reverberates And then abruptthe rain the rain The earth lies gasping and the eyes Behind the streaming windowpane Smile at the trouble JnOeW skies The highway smokes sharp echoes ring The cattle bawl and cowbells clank And into town comes galloping The farmers horse with steaming flank The swallow dips beneath the eaves And flirts with plumes and folds his wings And under the catawaba leaves The caterpillar curls and clings The bumblebee is pelted down The wet stem of the hollyhock And sullenly In spattered brown The cricket leaps the garden walk Within the baby claps his hands And crows with rapture strange and vague Without beneath the rosebush stands I A dripping rooster on one leg I James Whitcomb Riley |