I was looking for something "about clouds." These are old poems and they aren't like the best thing I ever wrote but they're all right.
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(Three poems on the subject of Day and Night, the scribbler being somewhat biased in favor of the latter)
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Day and Night #1
"Promise of a new day"…? What's that mean, anyway?
I guess… that there'll be news, always lots of it…?
And hmmm… oh yeah: Weather: Mild or harsh, I (almost) always love it;
And that at some point I'll take some time to watch the sparrows play
And spend some equally useless hours
Observing clouds, gray or gold,
Blue, lavender, orange, pillowy in warm air, thin and wispy in cold,
Marching ponderously eastward in dazzling towers
So white they almost pain the eye.
Aye, now I consider, good simple Day doth its promises spin in great profusion!
With rasp of insect song and seethe and surge of motion, disturbed by light into confusion
Which at last drains meekly from the sky.
Day's promise is at last broken.
The accounting never comes out flush.
The day-lover sighs as Day gets the bum's rush,
And thinks bitter words he leaves unspoken.
Night promises not a thing,
But only holds out its riches to our astonished sight.
We grasp and coo like babies, some of us; some reel back in fright,
At lustrous Night glistening.
(13 December 2008)
Day and Night #2
Day's last hurrah is loud, gold, and bold;
Slanting rays touch the crystal goblet and the wine
And dance in gleaming swirls upon the ceiling.
The village bell for twilight tolls
To impel us toward our leaving.
But stay at least until the wine is gone.
The darkness still is just a rumor
On the dust-hazed tawny fields below
And the deep-breasted river with its glad sparkling rills.
Stand with me as Day's curtain's drawn
And Night spreads her wings upon the jagged hills.
(27 July 2009)
Day and Night #3
Moon in Capricorn (waxing)
Leaping up the sky
Shafts of argent quickening
Star-dazzled hoofbeats.
(3 August 2009)
