The Day of Saints - Day 27, Petroc

A wet day and a mug of tea

In the past two weeks I have been out walking in moderate and heavy rain on a number of occasions. It is one thing to go out well prepared, but to suffer it with little or no shelter, and to do so 24/7 is quite another.

There is a story about Saint Petroc, that after having been to Rome and Jerusalem on pilgrimage, he returned to Britain and set foot there during a period of heavy rain. He confidently told his companions that the rain would clear up by the following morning, but instead it persisted for many more days. Petroc, ashamed at what he then realised was the presumptuousness of his prediction, decided he needed to go off on another pilgrimage, as penance. Legend has it that he travelled then as far as India. We might imagine he encountered a rather warmer climate there.

Saint Petroc in window glass at Bodmin

In Cornwall, a charity has been established under the saint's name. The Saint Petroc's Society has for the past thirty years worked with Cornwall Council and others to tackle homelessness and the underlying causes of it. It continues to provide a much needed support to people in the county faced with such issues. More information is available at https://stpetrocs.org.uk/about-us/history-of-st-petrocs/

In this simple poem I have tried to work the image of rain from the Petroc legend into an experience more of this day and age.

FOR PETROC

It kept on raining

It kept on raining,

How it poured was uncanny,

Just bucketing down,

From the perforated pale sky,

To kettle my feet before scuttling away.

It kept on raining,

And I saw its inclination

When descending like stair rods,

It shamed me up and down in

Guiltily avoided looks.

It kept on raining,

And there was no end of it,

It sat in my trousers,

It wrapped around me in my shirt.

It ran through my shoes,

It kept on raining,

Providing a liquid lunch

Until 'Gutter River' was the colour of sandwich,

Wet cellophane the texture of crisps,

And drenched, the definitive shape of hunger.

And it kept on raining,

Pain skulking in as cat and dog,

Claws out, digging holes in the asthmatic

With teeth bared barking until

Furballs of scarlet would cough themselves up

It's risky to make or to hear promises,

Of big enough umbrellas,

Or that taps turn both on and off,

But all I know is that invited in,

Looking out on the rain I felt a little less poor.

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A well outside of Bodmin Parish Church