Evening After a Rainy Day - Andrew Shields

He looks out the window

at the gray late-winter day,

sees the hooded crows

perching in and flying around

the still leafless chestnut trees,

and hears their hectic speeches,

their dialogues on territory.

He cannot tell if it's still

raining, so he steps gingerly

across the room he swept

and vacuumed so carefully –

you never know if you missed

the last piece that will cut

your foot – and holds

his hand out through

the empty window frame:

there's no more rain, he thinks,

as a patch of blue comes clear

between the clouds and the horizon.

Bio:

Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in June 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.