Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Propaganda For A Certain Kind Of Rare Weather

we don’t deserve clouds

like this

some that are not like swans

but close

most of all the seahorses

that do not rock

but roll along

and lingeringly spread

into torn pieces of cotton

as wiry strands whisper their farewells

like pocket lint these things dot the sky


clouds like this

as after a brief rainstorm

when splotches of pasty blue are puddled with white streaks

clouds like this

could make us think in different ways

from the ways of thought we normally take

not less than spying dolphins

or the traces of a lionfish’s showy fins

a scattering that is not unlike us

to do

sometimes

but

even so

we still don’t deserve it


if you could fault clouds for leaving

and if there were only an empty ache to take their place

would a nephologist merely smile

in some unknowable gesture of defeat

like a ripple in the troposphere

spouting off some words like

actinoform

cirrocumulus

altostratus

stratus

cumulonimbus


or


if you went washing in the worried light

and got lost in the sky

there might be a way to understand

other than forgetting

about shapes and shadows and ciphering and forgiveness

singing might do

but even a whistle would seem too much


and so

there wasn’t much to lose in the first place

after all

this

and

besides this


for now

it will do

this undeserved wonder

at least until something better comes along

to pack up the water vapor of regret

and leave the ice crystals of to-morrow

to form whatever they may

in the forever changing now

something that we might offhandedly call

the sky