Hiroshige - Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake (1857)

Van Gogh - Bridge in the rain, after Hiroshige (1887)

Bridge In The Rain after Van Gogh after Hiroshige by Ginette Callaway (2014)

Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge

The voice of the thunder god
rolls from roiling clouds, ripening
plum to damson.

Hats and parasols are drenched, bare flesh
stung by rain that falls so hard
each drop seems an admonishment.

But look past huddled shapes
bowed and scattering
at the blue-grey

of the wide river Sumida’s rippled skin
to where a boatman
poles his log raft

downstream: as if the storm
isn’t happening: as if he knows
this visitation won’t last long,

neither waiting for its passing
nor hurrying: back bent,
arms outstretched, moving on.

Roy Marshall