Rain like Mother used to make

Rain
Old school rain
Old school yard rain
The rain of our childhoods
Rain like Mother used to make
Big satisfying drops crashing down on decent sized puddles
Circles ever increasing for a proper length of time
Rain like it used to be
Before they modernised it
Computerised
Digitalised it
Standardised it
Bastardised it
And put it onto the world wide webbing
Diluted, watered down rain
At www.drizzle.com

Proper rain
Rain you could scrub your roof with
Rain that could slake the thirst of a parched river
Not the cheap ten-a-penny lo-budget rain of nowadays
Bought with loose change in Poundworld
But proper chunky thick-cut freshly oven baked rain
The right measures of H and O mixed strongly in perfect proportion
Rain that shattered the umbrella's fragile defences

Whatever happened to the rain of the Sixties
Did it take too many drugs?
Is that why we now have acid rain?
I am sure it rained properly when I was a nipper
Before Thatcher privatised it
And scientists overanalysed it
It doesn’t pour like it used to
On the lush fields that are always greener on the other side
It doesn’t rain cats and dogs anymore
(Since the animal rights people complained)
Like it always used to
In the days before hosepipe bans

I want rain you can leave unlocked so your neighbours can stop by and use it
The rain of whimsical, wistful reminiscence
Rain that falls endlessly for days
Obscures the view held by windows
And cascades down these misted-up rose tinted glasses