Sky Shapes

With what impudence that cloud hangs there,

Complacent puff-ball figure,

Sailing east with pendulous belly.

But wait! A swollen darker form sails near,

Glowering fatly, jaws agape,

Long fish-tail lifted scorpion-like.

Down here the birds continue cheeping,

An ornamental wind stirs flowers,

And chimneys quietly exhale.

Elsewhere refugees swarm south,

Haul and trample one another,

But here the shadow play goes on:

A cloudy duck sails backward,

Scattering into gunsmoke;

A sharp-nosed hedgehog loses fore-legs,

Changes to a ghost; a grey-white bat

Peels off into a cloud-bank, and lo!

The sky again assumes a temporary blue.

©Terry Hodgson2025