Sky. Clouds. Apples

In the Salt Marsh: Poems (2004)

I shall become a disciple of clouds,windblown like the brushed wings of waves,or heaped, dome upon dome, in eccentric hives,or pulled like scenery crossing an empty sky.I have seen fish in the sky and a dogthat sank into a sheep pursuing a birdat so majestic a pace they hung like a friezeof carved smoke, shading the mountain’s flank,and once, as a child, a white ship so grandI called my mother to see it,and she opened the kitchen door and stoodon the threshold and scanned the evening lightas it opened a hole in the canopy of mapleson the empty berth at the darkening wharf of the sky.On my first trip to the sky, when the planebroke through the clouds I saw the ballroomsof heaven with nobody in them, the floors swept cleanwith brooms of light. No nomads so restlessas clouds. No saint so quick to surrender the selfover and over: love, and do what you will.Wear me. I am already you.Now storms are pruning the orchards.The broken flesh of apples, scarredor cut to the core, litter the green aisles.This morning I saw clouds rise from the mowed fieldwhere they camped all night under the mountainand departed in sunlit coachesturning away, into the clean sky.