Clouds

 

 

They were there before the dark edges.

They were there before the prolapsed voices.

 

They were the steam kingdoms

Where I first took step.

 

I saw them when I looked up.

They were the soundless architects

Of my waking and the rhyming

Nursery at sleep.

 

They went on their soft ways

From nowhere to nowhere.

I went with them, pari-passu.

 

We changed imperceptibly –

Gathering and disintegrating too

Slowly for the people eye to see.

 

They are still the ghosts of children

Sent from where to where.

 

They have no home nor need none

But the blood reflections of Autumn’s sinter.

 

Soon, quiet as glass, they will go

Into the blue history of languor.

 

(C) N J Green