An Afternoon With Perperuna

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By Turlough

Fri, 28 Aug 2026
  • 167 reads
14 comments
 

 

An Afternoon With Perperuna

 

In slippers sewn from finest petrichor

She’ll dance across our dusty land

Spatters on vine leaves rouse dozing grasshoppers

They cool secret juices from tumescent grapes

And calm the most-weary of drought-stricken minds

Hers, the softest kiss on the hardest earth

Soothes the wounds and the burns of August’s ferocity

 

As a gramophone needle ploughs and scratches

Georges Brassens’ L’orage echoes from another room

I throw open a window to breathe water-cooled air

While raindrops turn to spikes of cold steel or cobbles of ice

I watch her helter-skelter deluge arrive, revive, perchance then destroy

Beneath a sky crying tears for they who tilled and then sowed

Golden crops that they’d hoped would earn them purses of gold

 

Parched ground transformed with a wave of her wand

Aestival tension lies quenched, scorched emotions all drowned

Clay pots dressed in fresh rosemary to invite overflow

Where fig leaves float in puddles like paper boats

As clouds depart the wasps arrive with plans for fruit fallen

On insatiable soil that imbibed her downpour’s aftermath

These torrid days we’re pleased to greet Perperuna as our guest

 

 

Image:

The image of Perperuna, the Slavic god of rain, painted on an electricity distribution box in Veliko Tarnovo. I love the fact that there’s a rivet in the very place where her belly button would be, if Slavic gods had belly buttons, that is. Oh, and it’s my own photograph.

 

The soundtrack of the poem is available in the foyer, or click here to listen…

L’orage, by Georges Brassens

 

 

 

 

Certificate U
Poem
Poetry in Commotion
Surreal
Nature
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Wonderful, thank you. I will come back and reread later

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Ah, good morning, and thank you, and thank you for the cherries.

Turlough

Submitted by Makis on

Wonderfully exotic Turlough, and I particularly liked your reference to Brassens' L'Orage. We had our long awaited thunderstorm here yesterday, but unfortunately I wasn't sheltering from it in close confines with a sensuous lady, as George was describing in his song. It did fill my water butts though!

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Thank you very much Makis.

I love the fact that Georges sings 'des pays imbeciles óu jamais il ne pleut' (stupid countries where it never rains). He's probably having a dig at Bulgaria where I live.

I'm glad to hear your water butts have been filled. I expect you'd dressed them with rosemary to invite Perperuna. 

Turlough

Submitted by Makis on

Not this year, I just connected them to the downspouts. Not as sensuous, I admit, but then there's not much Perperuna about in Scarborough this year. Global warming I think.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

The last time I was in Scarborough was when I took my elderly mother for an day out from where she lived in York. We set off on a sunny but fresh October morning about fifteen years ago, but by the time we'd got to the point where we were able to sit on a bench on the prom to enjoy our ninety-nines a blizzard had blown in from the North Sea. Perperuna had obviously finished her shift and Morana had taken up the reins. 

Turlough

Submitted by Makis on

You know what they say about the weather up here. If you don't like what you're getting, just give it twenty minutes. I think there used to be a Perperuna working by the harbour, selling pacamacs and umbrellas next to the whelk stall, or was it Precipita? Anyway, it was something like that, and rumour has it that business wasn't good, what with the very hot and un Scarborough-like weather we've had this season, so she's now a deck hand on the Regal Lady. 
 

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

My sister is a farmer about 12 miles from Scarborough, mixed arable and beef cattle.  They are having a really tough time of it. 

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

In Bisley, which I'm sure you know Turlough, the beautiful spring-fed wells have an annual Well Dressing ceremony when they are decked with flowers.  

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Well well well, it's the well dressed wells! What a great idea! I'll pass the news on to the old woman who sits by the well in our village. 

I've only ever been to Bisley to excise helomata dura, but I remember having a lovely time there doing it.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Great poem and great song !  And I learnt a new English word (Aestival) and quite a few new French ones. 'Paratonire' will come in handy in a  translation of 'My postillion has been struck by lightning but it's ok because he has a lightning rod'.  As usual your post is both entertaining and educational !

On a much more serious note, what the hell is going on in Middlesborough ? Sounds like complete anarchy.  I do hope your family aren't caught up in it.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

It's great to learn new words, and new songs, especially when they're a bit cheeky. 

The one thing that Middlesbrough has in common with Chippenham is that my family were only passing through. They're not originally from there (apart from my and my sister) and we moved away sixty years ago this month which, in my opinion, was one of our better moves. It's a shame because a large proportion of Middlesbrough people are warm-hearted, funny and kind.

And for all it's faults, I'd rather be there than in Nepal at the moment. The situation there is absolutely horrific.

Turlough

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

This is our Poem of the Week - Congratulations!

It's also our social media Pick of the Day

Please share if you enjoy it too

 

Submitted by Turlough on

That's wonderful wonderful news! I'm fair chuffed!

Thank you very much indeed.

Turlough