How do we thank the clouds for their fleeting abundance? —Pablo Neruda
Too often, we take them for granted, those fluffy thought balloons drifting lazily by spring’s bluest curtain. We may praise the sun or think, What a beautiful day, but unless
we lay ourselves on soft grass, cup our hands behind our heads and direct our distracted gaze upward, we fail to notice the proliferation of clouds, forget that they move in infinite permutations, reshape themselves like spirits, demonstrate the intention of wind.
And when they overtake the sky en masse, wearing their darkest clothes, dare to spit at us, we unfurl umbrellas, complain, Not today. When it first comes, we reluctantly admit, We do need the rain, but storm after storm leaves us wishing the deluge would stop
We long for the aftermath—for puffy clouds from a child’s drawing, for sunshine and petrichor filling our lungs with that washed-clean smell of earth.
We tip our chins to the sky then, and maybe one among us— one of the smallest— will spot a billowing sail high above, point and say,
Look, it’s a sheep— no, a galloping horse, and that one will giggle gratitude as the daily sky show unfolds for us rooted ones, who wish we could let go and float like that.
Clouds—Taft Point, Yosemite National Park (top) and on the edge of Palm Springs (above) Photos: Dick Schmidt
1. First, forget that you want to write a poem. Because maybe you don’t. But you’ve got a blank page or too-bright screen in front of you, aching for you to put something on it.
1b. Just set down some words, gently, as if you’re placing a delicate china cup onto its equally fragile saucer. Let them come through your fingers, any words you like the sound of. Maybe chimney. Or plucky. Or plucky chimney. They don’t have to logically go together. Let yourself smile at their willingness to show up for you.
2. Add more words. Arrange them in short lines if that looks good to you, little stairsteps marching down the page. Try not to think too hard about them, these raindrops of syllables trickling through you, these sturdy words: Mediterranean. Catalpa.
2b. Or maybe your lines stretch across the page like the long arm of a wave coming in parallel to the shore. Watch it arrive, melt into foam. Call it a prose poem, if you want.
3. You may think, This is a poem? It’s a poem if you call it a poem. Doesn’t matter if anyone else thinks so. Or praises it in any way. It’s your poem, dammit.
3b. Keep going till the poem wants to end. How do you know it’s the beginning of the end? Put an ear to the words; listen closely as if trying to determine if someone is still breathing. Listen to the words inhaling and exhaling, living on the page, stairsteps leading to some final thought, becoming something that didn’t exist before you started.
4. Resist the tendency to dismiss what has appeared from who knows where with (look at that!) a bit of fairy dust sprinkled on top. Honestly, it’s magic; no one understands how this happens. Admire what has tumbled down those stairs and landed.
4b. There. You poemed just now. That is no small thing, my friend. You poemed.
(in honor of Live Long and Prosper Day, Leonard Nimoy’s birthday)
We think Star Trek, but Jews know that it’s the gesture for the Hebrew letter Shin, the first letter of the word Shalom.
And the man who created it, who parted the fingers of his right hand for the rest of his life in salutation, knew that it calls for healthy and prosperity—
live long and prosper.
People don’t realize they’re blessing each other with this, said the Jewish man who gave the world Spock.
That we are hardwired to love and lose is what comes again and again— the euphoria of spring springing into sudden, bright leaves where there were none days ago, green harbingers that will age through summer, grow brittle by fall.
It is the way of things:
That decline into the time when passage to the next place is possible, mourning what was, learning to let go.
That love emerges in the form of unexpected beings who appear, lend a hand, a heart, a word, companion spirits, seen and unseen, who arrive with armfuls of compassion,
kindness falling like soft rain after a long dry spell, moistening hard ground, coaxing out of hiding green stalks topped with dancers in fluted yellow skirts to courtesy in the breeze.
