Sculptures in the Wind

The dark clouds
     were
moving in with a
                 slow deliberateness.

     forbidding and foreboding,
majestic beyond concept.

They were sculptures in the wind
Walking slowly
over the sky

Warm winds clapping my skin
swirling lost leaves in great circles of madness
They blew 'cross my path
as I moved through different universes.

A sole drop of rain touched my face
(a warning of the future)
and the winds flew with a force--

Great swaths cutting across the sky
feeling their way 'round great luminous mountains
like great fjords, breathing greys and shadows.

A painted splash of grey
-- the perfect cloud
in some parts quilting the sky into a corner
in other parts, blanketing the hills with
thicknesses of swirling smoke

The air was thick and hot,
the wind, cool and clammy
like ocean spray on a foggy beach
It swept around me,
a whipping caress.

By night, the moon was blue,
looking down at me coolly
     through a hole in the darkness.
I could see (forever) the world.

(Written in 1976)