Thin morning clouds
hovered and grew
Thunder muttered
Rain spattered then
poured in sheets
Fragments of blue sky
peered through ~
gone in an instant
air fragrant with moisture
Evening clouds
ride high and spent.
“I love the smell right after a storm.”
~ Elijah Wood
It was still early evening
the sky clear and blue
a robin landed high in the tree
hopped branch to branch
settling in the centre of the tree.
Trying to hurry and be still
I willed this bird of spring
to sit still while branches waved.
Birds, animals and little children
do not settle in one spot too long
so regardless of fading light
I clicked the button on my phone,
His red breast, hidden in the poor light
only showed off in black and white.
“Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.”
~ Elliot Erwitt, documentary photographer
(1928 ~ 2023)
A crescent moon
A single star
a darkening sky
no cloud shadows
fore or aft
in the quiet
of early evening.
“In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling.”
~ Gertrude Stein, writer
(1874 - 1946)
A high and mighty wind
A broad blue canvas set higher
A palette of cloud set between
gifted a busied weekday
with strokes of genius
Lifting my sight to the sky
I felt my heart and soul expand.
“On the canvas of life,
Every sweep of the brush matters,
Counts for something…"
~ Scott Hastie, poet
When the sky is so blue
it hurts your eyes
When the air is so cold
it burns your breath
When the snow fills the lace
of the trees
When the sun is so bright
it blinds you
It is winter.
“Nothing burns like the cold.”
~ George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Azure or cobalt,
sapphire or royal
Wrap around our world blue
save for errant clouds hiding
in mountains and forests
or traveling carpets of water
off to parts unknown....
Today at the bus stop I had time to look.
The clear blue sky, leafless trees reaching
into the void. Tall office buildings, straight edged,
diminished by the grandeur of the sky,
mere cutouts on the ball of dust that we stand on.
The magnitude of the morning sky
and our tiny lives was not lost on me.
We have it all arranged in roads and sidewalks,
squared off fields and plantings.
The night time sky shows only a hint
of the myriad of planets, stars and galaxies
that spin and revolve in the space past the sky
We discuss and plan, build and tear down
but in the end the beautiful sky is over us all.
“I never get tired of the blue sky.”
~ Vincent van Gogh
on a bench far from the bell towers, the air silent save for
the raucous calling of crows
to interrupt this peaceful Sunday morn; crunching leaves, dry cracked earth,
squirrels scampered, a backyard barbecue grilled juicy hamburgers.
a woman played with her child on bright blue and red swings. I imagined
the tolling of the bells -
their music drifting into the sky,
settling over the city in peace and calm.
“For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
the hearts of young and old.”
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Autumn clouds
slow drift and pose
first as a duck
then a swan
floats into the blue.
“Clouds float in the same pattern only once.
~ Wayne Shorter
Give me a church made entirely of prairie grasses with
wheat fields of green,
flax fields of purple blue,
mustard fields of yellow.
In that church under
the broad blue sky
I can see forever.
Should a storm come upon me, I can see billowing, bubbling thunder clouds rise up over the horizon.
Should lightening fork
to the ground or
spread a sheet over
slate grey clouds
I can run in to the shelter of
my childhood verandah.
Then I can still be part of that
church that is the world of the prairies.
“She liked the enormous sky and the winds, and the land that you
couldn’t see to the end of. Everything was so free and big and splendid.”
~ Laura Ingalls Wilder,
From Little House on the Prairie
“Give me a church made entirely of ….."
~ from the poem Sea Church by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
