The Day It Rained People Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The day it rained people,
Irina Tipunova heard a howling noise.
Everything rattled,
A woman, landed in her kitchen

Rain has no memories when it hits the ground
Beauty, embroidered sheets, a Chopin concert
All erased. A spilt second of panic
Searing through flesh then nothing.
There is no alphabet to describe that terrible downpour:

Three babies
Fresh cut flowers
Bodies of holiday makers
Four pet dogs
Diplomats' papers
Doctors, stopped in their tracks
A child's pink slippers
Newlyweds
A bicycle (undamaged!)
All harvested by looters

Shooters, meanwhile, deny responsibility
White flags mark the fallen in bright cornfields
Surrendered remains, steam in the heat of corruption

An infant lies by a sunflower, never to wake
Again to suckle the milk from the pap of its ghostly mother

From football to oblivion,
A boy lies, fouled, in a foreign field

All, all, like acorn cups spilled from the tree of the world
The callous clouds neglected to uphold.

Meanwhile, like carrion crows
The needy living strip the needless dead