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Conjugate the Words of Clouds

by Lulu Alder

The olivine gray sky is illuminated across all cardinal and intermediate directions
from brief veins of electicity-
perhaps the same strobe having blinded Saul.
From the vantage point below it's impossible to determine
whether the spilled streaks are more heat or light.

The Earth does not resist or try to shrug off the Storm.
It sits like a single, working mother in sudsy tub
allowing relief to soak into sore muscles with five minutes peace.
Any other time of day would not have afforded the collective hush,
stillness,
saturation,
awe...

Low growls steadily rolling over the fields, the tracks,
over the trees-too-far-to-touch,
over the slow creek holding secrets of before us/ before past/ before ancient/ before here.
The low notes stomping along with pride as if bells to worship
at the sanctuary of my window.
The raindrops have harmonized a choir against the pane and concrete
and all the weary blades of grass constant to the pew
come to know-
come to experience-
come to welcome satisfaction of a Sunday rain.

08/26/2007

Author's Note: This is not a poem- This is what inspired the poem:
Pablo Neruda
the sky light in a bathroom
a children's book with elephants
Toni Morrison
wood grain
Jonathan Edwards's secret prayers
three hours of loyalty unfulfilled
5:00 pm
Kate Chopin
tree houses
"Hills Like White Elephants"
elusiveness
fossils
blood
silence
the continuity of the water cycle.

But this is not a poem. The Storm was a poem merely translated.

Posted on 08/29/2007
Copyright © 2024 Lulu Alder

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Jim Moore on 08/29/07 at 04:13 AM

You put a lot of work into this one, and it shows. Much Enjoyed.

Posted by Paul Lastovica on 08/29/07 at 07:10 PM

if this isn't a poem then i no longer know what is.

Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 09/02/07 at 11:14 PM

Eloquent expression of a storm. Elements of religion heighten the expression. (Enlightening author's notes.)

Posted by Timothy Burns on 10/10/09 at 06:21 AM

+fave! nuff said

Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 12/10/10 at 02:07 PM

if this is not a poem, then we are all in peril when we call what we do, poetry. I see nothing in this that does not qualify it as an ode, though inspired by Neruda, still, this poem has a life and a personality and style and voice of its very own of which you should take pride, for it has taken me on quite an incredible and deliriously delightful ride.

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