Cloud Paint

Clouds are a peculiar thing.

They shape and bend

at the mercy of the wind.

Sometimes we see something

in those puff balls.

See something no one else can,

before the winds erase it from existence.

I once saw clouds

shaped like something magnificent!

It was like Rousseau painted the sky.

Images of lions leaping to kill

and tigers tracking their prey

and broken helicopters spiraling toward Earth,

Littered that big blue ocean above me.

Like sea foam cresting waves.

Swirling paint in the sky

broken up by the wind.

The tiger stretched until it was no more

The leaping lion

obliterated by the wind.

Like a private gallery

showing in the sky.

Those images will never be seen by anyone’s eyes

but mine.

I will never again

see those painting in the sky.