Cloud

Fled the sky in bits and shreds to flit and settle
into feathered, soft, round day – inveigling its
insinuating way – bound for the bottom of the well
of me – as if to cover, briefly, with its velvet gray down,

several tiny creatures made of May – lost winged
things flung from Spring – dazed – without a dwelling –
pastel ghosts of warmth – small bewildered swellings
formed of petal and of sway – paradigms of butterfly

and blossom – so dismayed by their alarming brush
with gossamer perfection they’ve forgotten time
and space – and now are nothing but the glimmered
shavings of some past remembered state of grace –

aberrations from another season – blind to gravity
and reason: fading as December day becomes
a freezing blight – and as the gray turns into colorlessly
darkened lack of light. I am made of May, and they

have looked for me like family: but they are exhalations:
not susceptible to human sight: gone as soon as felt.
Tricks my mind plays, after all the dissonance
of Christmas, as solstice clouds turn into night.


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