Carl Zephyr, Member 61,726 has a special interest in the water lifecycle: clouds, the sea, and the weather that moves them between each other.  He recently sent in a selection of his cloud poetry. He told us “Poetry is how I’ve processed emotions since I was 8 years old. I discovered a couple years ago, during a trying time, that I could identify harbingers of my coming storms – much like the stratocumulus warns Floridians that our summer storms are near at hand.” We will share more of his poetry in the coming weeks and have paired this poem with an image of Stratocumulus over the Atlantic Ocean, near Boca Raton, Florida by Raymond Popkin

Stratocumulus

Summer cloud
full, dripping
with sun

White
Life
the warmth of an embrace
the soft cheek of a lover

He builds morning to afternoon
Expansive, impressive
arms outstretched, admiring,
Admired

his waterdrops accumulate
Cumulus
pulling him down, down,
evening comes
his face darkens:
instability
in the atmosphere

suddenly
strat, stat

and he cannot stop
giving all of himself
to the heaving seas
only to limp back up
the morning after.

© Carl Zephyr