Dogs of Sunlight

Drove out Pigeon House Road to the South Wall, mainly because I noticed the clouds, huge roiling extravagances of slate and ivory, trailing their oddly ephemeral-looking downpours. The mountains were unusually clear and richly textured. Tide was far out. I noticed a woman setting loose her dogs who tore across the sand's rippling mirror.

We live with our sky's shifting cities so most of us take rainclouds' voluptuous violence for granted. I never fail to be mesmerised by them though, how they bloom like frozen explosions over the horizon's ruler, the soft-headed mountains and neatly stacked container parks.

A little later, picking him up, I arrived early and saw a huge fist brandishing itself over the school. I let Lola out onto the little field nearby and threw a few balls for her, till it suddenly fell, drubbing us with heavyweight drops.

Looking at the above, I'm reminded of Louis MacNeice's wonderful poem, Valediction, specifically these lines:

If I were a dog of sunlight I would bound
From Phoenix Park to Achill Sound,
Picking up the scent of a hundred fugitives
That have broken the mesh of ordinary lives...
[Rest of the poem here]