Let Joni Mitchell, looking at clouds from "Both Sides Now," speak for our loss of childhood innocence. Allow William Wordsworth (whose poetry I idolize) to wander lonely as a cloud until he notices the beautiful brightness of daffodils, which dance and wave and beckon him into gratitude and appreciation. Leave it to visionary Percy Bysshe Shelley to explore endless possibilities of clouds as they make their way though various landscapes. Watch Walt Whitman, while addressing the immortality of stars, contrast them with "ravening clouds, the burial clouds in black masses spreading," clouds that threaten but ultimately cannot devour the luster and radiance of stars. Remember to make room for the Rolling Stones to kick everyone off of their clouds as they rock on about life's frustrations. Hey, you! Get off!
No, I cannot compete nor compare. October skies, however, invite me into sweet reverie of my own.
As giant balloons of cumulus clouds billow across the heavens, forming a rabbit here and a turtle there, I remember the first time I learned to imagine shapes in the sky. As a child living in the Midwest, I had gone with my parents to visit some friends of theirs. The family had a son a few years older than I who had the undoubtedly unwelcome task of entertaining a little kid while the adults chatted and reminisced. Long before the days when parents would balk at sending their young daughter anywhere alone with an older boy, even if a longtime friend, they shuffled us off into the back yard of the Illinois home to find something to do. We lay on our backs in the thick, sweet grass, and he began to show me what he saw . . . a dog, a sword, a snowman. Soon I could recognize shapes, too. This kept us spellbound for what seemed like hours, or at least long enough to allow the parents to finish a pitcher of chilled martinis. To this day, I delight in the poodle shaping up in the sky and then reforming into a teddy bear and then into a Santa hat. Truth be told, I sometimes, now in adult years, see hints of X-rated arrangements that make me laugh, should anyone read my thoughts.
Fast forward some childhood years to my first airplane trip. My father told me I would be soaring above all the clouds, giving me a whole new perspective, all sunshine despite the dark and gray world below. He said it would look like a marshmallow carpet of sweet goodness. I think he intended this to excite me and comfort me. Because I had a death grip on the arms of my airplane seat, I apparently blocked the blood flow to my imagination. I didn't care about an endless summer of brilliance. I could not comprehend any kind of heavenly platform that looked as if I could jump into it. All I wanted to do was plant my feet safely on the ground, even under a dark, gray sky.
Now, this evening, as the setting sun paints clouds and sky with a brilliant palette of colors, my heart skips a beat and then fills with a sense of awe. Such glory cannot be captured completely even in the most detailed paintings or the most precise photographs. This is a sight, an experience, that one must ingest firsthand. With each breathtaking moment, the moveable feast imprints itself on my soul and becomes part of my spirit. I will invite it to create the truest sentence I know.
