Wipers

March 2 2014

The wipers thwok-thwok-thwok
squeegee across

the windshield.
The heater hums, the wheels slosh
and rain keeps coming down;

a comforting sound,

softening the noise

of an old car

in heavy traffic.

The rubber blades are clockwork

moving slickly over the glass,
leaving the world, for an instant
sharp
and unambiguous.
Until drop-by-drop
the veil thickens,
and a pleasant vagueness
settles in.

As hypnotic

as a dripping tap,
except you can’t stand
the fraught expectant waiting,
listening
straining to hear.

As a sprinkler, on summer grass
going fffft-fffft-thwak,
its intermittent arc
whirring out.
The spray, suspended like a veil,
briefly rainbowed
with light.

This is how water
softens the world,

with its pleasing drone

and liquid blur.

Which I prefer
to those moments of hyper-focused clarity.

Of oncoming traffic
thundering past
on an undivided road.
That goes on and on
its straight and narrow path,
all the way

to the vanishing point.

 A cold hard winter, and it hasn't rained for months.

But I started to read an article on the invention of intermittent wipers (yes, a highly poetic topic!), and immediately flashed back to driving in the rain: the comfortingly hypnotic sound of the wipers going thwok-thwok-thwok; the view flipping instantaneously from this pleasantly watery blur to hyper-sharp.

The blur of rain becomes a metaphor for denial -- like rose-coloured glasses -- softening the danger of an undivided highway, of tractor trailers thundering past. And it obscures the boredom and inertia of the pre-set path, and so becomes a metaphor for the possibility of re-invention, serendipity, and unexpected curves.