Category: Cloud Poetry

Why not send us your own cloud poetry? Remember to include your full name and where you live.

A mixed sky over the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.

THE SKY WITHOUT CLOUDS

Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson, sent us this poem reflecting on sky.  We’ve paired it with this mixed sky over the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia by Ebony Willson, Member 53,124

The Sky Without Clouds

A day without clouds is the sky at its least.
We had one here just recently.
Be they piles, or wisps, or fantastic shapes,
they continue to fascinate me.

They pose, slowly move, or they change all the time.
They’re now like a scatt’ring of sheep —
hurrying, scurrying, playing around
just below tops of the high mountain peaks.

© Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson 2022

                                ~ ~ ~ ~~ 
                    *AKA Dee Strickland Johnson
Anti-crepuscular rays over Idaho, US.

“Cloud-Whisperer” by Kathy Miles

Kathy Miles is a poet living in West Wales; her fourth full collection was published by Indigo Dreams in 2020.  This is a poem she wrote about Luke Howard with a photograph by Jan Boles of Anti-crepuscular rays over Idaho, US.

Cloud-Whisperer
after Luke Howard, 1802

He named them because he could.
For the thrill of cirrus on his tongue,
cumulus and stratus a banquet
on the palate. Obsession ached
inside him, the need to claim
and classify. The logic of shape.

He envied their resolve,
the purpose that kept them feral,
wandering from place to place
like nomads, always heading
to the next clear patch of sky
that argued its blue emptiness.

Seeing them submerged in sea
or lake, he wanted to raise
them like a grounded swift,
throw them high as he could,
then call them back to his side
by the names that he had gifted.

Now I watch their floss and bustle,
like a woman hurrying to work
worries building inside her; ragged
fractus, weary with the day,
shapeshifting into mist, keeping
its nose to the grindstone.

Their bellies are full of storm
and fire, while mine has emptied
of passion. I think of the man who
organised the skies; how nothing
pleased him more than waking
to quilts of nimbus, cirrostratus.

© Kathy Miles 2023

A joyful cirrus face over Tucson, Arizona, US.

Keshet Amalia Wistenberg

Keshet Amalia Wistenberg recently sent us this poem to share with the CAS community. We’ve paired it with an image from our Photo Gallery by Ernesto Astiazaran of a joyful cirrus face over Tucson, Arizona, US.

Vantage Point

Fribbling, trotting,
In circles abounding,
Our smidgens of forms
So dear, yet so far.

We click and we squabble,
Enwrangled, surrounding,
By godlies, by froundies,
By tresses of star.

They drift and they float
And they sweep up the foundlings,
Who live in their castles,
Their dreamy memoir.

They follow, they peer at
We short-sighting groundlings,
And ‘member it all
In their mountains on par.

When angry, we quarrel,
With teeth, steam abounding,
When they do, they weep,
As they know what we are.

We’re boorish, we’re legged,
We’re scraggle-pip-thounding,
We’re dirty and little
and thoughtless, wind scar.

They weep and they roar,
Erupt, all propounding,
They do so as schedule
Makes bare who they bar.

For us, we’re the peasants,
sca-venging, sca-rounging,
And them all the king, and the chief
And the tsar.

We imagine a vastly
Built ever so rounding,
For us in the center,
The jam in the jar.

‘Truly?’ ‘Tis factin?’
We shriek, throbbing, pounding,
For deep’st we know’st
Our knowings off par.

The clouds, are our windows,
From here to the bounding,
Old boundary of here
To the great world their from,

The clouds are our windows,
From here to the bounding,
Old boundary of here
To the great world to come.

© Keshet Amalia Wistenberg

A full moon over Bigfork, Montana, US.

“Clouds” by Nick Houvras

Nick Houvras, member 7,347 is a longstanding member of the Cloud Appreciation Society and sent us one of his cloud related poems. We’ve paired it with a photograph from our Photo Gallery of a full moon over Bigfork, Montana by Ruth Quist.

Clouds

The clouds are the roof over our head curiously they break apart and you see the blue sky And sun above.
At night there my appear a star winking at you.
Or a big white round full moon that comes partly through.
The oceans adrift in the sky above but no sail boats there flying high.
Just occasionally white streaks planes leave behind like trails one can walk on.
You maybe, so for now just say hi, high to the clouds in the sky!

© Nick Houvras 2022

A sunrise over Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain.

A BRILLIANT SUNSET

Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson, sent one of her more recent poems.  The image we’ve chosen to accompany it is by Lourdes Sanches Munoz

A BRILLIANT SUNSET

I saw a sunset, just this evening.
Out the window of my den.
‘Twas so lovely, so inspiring
I ran to fetch my camera in.
Vermillion clouds –
a dozen of them, ‘gainst a sky
deep turquoise blue!
By the time I’d found my camera, tho’,
alas, the show was through.

Still, I know I’ll keep it always
in the lens of my mind’s eye:
Those amazing brilliant
orange pink clouds
dancing in a turquoise sky.

Buckshot Dot* © 2020

Faces in the clouds over the Hamble river, England.

The Old, Old Man

Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson, wrote this poem in 1940 when she was 9 years old.  The image we’ve chose to accompany it is by Linda Holtby, Member 20,966, of faces in the clouds over the Hamble river, England.

THE OLD OLD MAN

His beard is so long it touches his toes.
If I were to paint him, he’d have a red nose.

He does not talk, nor gather a crowd,
For this old old man — is only a cloud.

© Dottie Jean Strickland* 1940, age 9

Lenticularis over Skarsvåg, Nordkapp, Finnmark, Norway.

From a small ship in Antarctic waters

Annie Dillard, Member 46,119 sent us an anecdote of an encounter from a small ship in Antarctic waters.

“Over a long life I’ve learned that the meaning of this sight is a handy thing to know.

From a small ship in Antarctic waters I saw a stack of lenticular clouds and thought HERE’S TROUBLE.

We pulled into a station and those manning it said, Go to the hurricane harbor.

We toodled off to the safe harbor. It was fully occupied by the Chilean Navy.

We had no choice but to head out for sea room. If we were going to be helpless in a storm, we’d best go where

we wouldn’t hit anything. I’d often read about “sea room” and here it was.

We bucked and tilted –probably used a lot of gas–and were just fine.

Later I found a similar stack of lenticular clouds almost permanently over the peak of Washington’s Mount Baker”.

© Annie Dillard

Heavenly “Boo!”

Sherman Schapiro, Member 56,083, sent this short poem inspired by our Halloween Cloud-a-Day – an Altocumulus ‘supercilium’, a cloud term yet to be recognised as an official one, spotted haunting the sky over San Anselmo, California, US by Lee FitzGerald (Member 50,400).

Heavenly “Boo!”

Eerie skies above,
like tentacles descending.
Clouds for Hallowe’en.

© Sherman Schapiro

Staring Out the Window

Paul Davies, Member 28,330. wrote this descriptive piece to share with us.  We’ve paired it with an image of Zunderdorp, Gemeente Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands   © mercy

Staring out the window,
wondering why those cotton-wool balls
which look like mammoths
or a score of shrubs shoulder-to-shoulder
don’t over-fly my garden in smaller clumps
the size of cows or sheep or rabbits or birds

I mean
why are these clouds so large
is there some gravitational attraction
which keeps those visible water particles
together in bundles of roughly similar size

© Paul Davies

From Guo Wei

Guo Wei, Member 57,319, wrote this poem after seeing Circumzenithal Arc when leaving home one morning.  The image shared here was taken on a walk in Beichen Mountain, Xiamen, China

《解构与重组——环天顶弧之歌》

每一天
我站在原地
万事万物流过我
以气息、话语、文字
咀嚼的质地
或只是纯粹明暗的光线
渐变的波长、频谱
穿透我
用一切确定与不确定性,将我
扭转、分散、符号化

风把我的碎片卷曲、打包
投向高空的尘埃和冰晶,以及大气中
无法自证其存在的颗粒
于是我习惯性在清早眺望太阳凝望的方向
终见天空微笑

© Guo Wei

Cirrus uncinus

Sherman Schapiro (Member 56,083) of Eureka, CA, USA wrote this Haiku after seeing the Cloud-a-Day of 14th August 2022. We’ve accompanied it with the image used in that Cloud-a-Day which was taken by Celia Quinn (member 53,053) and shows Cirrus uncinus clouds over Mount Pinos in the Transverse Ranges, South California, US

Cirrus uncinus

Those wispy wonders;
Kitelike clouds fly high above,
Spirits in the sky.

© Sherman Schapiro

CLOUDSHIP, SPACESHIP

Ric Johnson has written “Cloudship, Spaceship”, a poem based on this photograph he took which was obviously a flying saucer disguised as a cloud!

CLOUDSHIP, SPACESHIP

Oh, gorgeous saucer
Cruising, skirting
Clouded skies.

Slim saucer surveying
A cloudship sweeping
In trim exercise.

Cloudship as spaceship
Skims on patrol
Perhaps us they despise.

Camouflaged spaceship
Cunning as cloud
And quietly spies.

Marauding she gleams
A sauntering dreamer
Our world she defies.

Assessing, digesting
Thinking, deciding
As time flies.

Such spirit of travel
Exploring new dawns
While thought multiplies.

In our world unread
We battle away
Unaware of surprise.

Deceiving me here
She’s nothing but vapour
As the crow flies.

Gleaming creature depart
Away from our years
Leaving us to our skies.

Unforming, dissolving
Maybe sensing our sorrows
As Earth cries.

© Ric Johnson – Another Liverpool Poet

From Kate Edge

Kate Edge, Member 30,633, wrote this piece whilst busily working on new cloud paintings for an upcoming exhibition in Tenby, UK next year.  We’ve accompanied her text with one of her previous paintings, “Foel Drygarn”

We bring peace to you now and forever more.

We are the motion of love resplendent.

Our journey is to cover earth with

love’s nourishment -to feed mankind

all the seeds sown by the Creator.

We pass all manner of changes below

but we are the circles of divine motion

breathing over the turbulence on earth.

Cloud awakening means to know the

invisible that we carry and to carry it to

the heart of others .

We are a living prayer.

We evoke the remembrance of the eternal beauty in all.

© Kate Edge 2022

The Clouds of Life by Rachel Jacobs

Rachel Jacobs, Member 55,934 wrote told us she “created a poem for the firmly-minded purpose of the well-being of the clouds”.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

The Clouds of Life

A round of life, and that of death

Who beckons those away.

Who steals the knife, who steals the breath

Of those who yearn to stay.


Of brevity, of shortness

Rather infant fresh demise,

Of lives and souls of drifting wisps,

Of youth with all but lies.


To them they are of Cirrus

Who crane their necks to see,

A faintly there, but there alas,

Of actuality.


Of those who seek revenge,

Who sought and seek and went,

To all the spitting measures

But never reached content.


Altocumulus they turn,

Their souls reach up and are,

Through hills and dales they try and fail

A moon without a star.


And gentlemen and ladies

With motives good and true, 

Who shine through after darkness

And honour through and through,


These noble ones at heart,

Who learned in the lore,

Become all the fair cumulus

In kindness evermore.


And it comes, by-and-by,

From solid, sinking, be,

To serene drifting sighs,

Of man dustpaned by me.


Swept away by rolls of clouds

With kerchief, breath and shroud,

For life nor death can sunder

All the love to man endowed.


© Rachel Jacobs 2022

“The Kiss” by Ric Johnson

Ric Johnson, a poet from Liverpool, took this photograph and wrote a limerick about it whilst travelling North on the M6, somewhere in the Midlands, UK.  This particular kiss only lasted for a very short time before dissolving.

The Kiss

You may think this is just hit and miss

When two clouds have a moment of bliss

A collision of lips at height atmospheric

Left us loonies below in a state quite mesmeric

As giants melt in Cumulus kiss!

© Ric Johnson 2022 – Another Liverpool Poet

Cloud Poetry

Isabell VanMerlin wrote this poem a while ago following many gray days in New England. She incorporated it with a photograph taken in Dover, NH, where she lives.

A Cloudy Day of Art

Kathleen Janick, member 49,856, sent us this tongue-in-cheek poetic expression of her experience in the CAS cloud watercolor workshops hosted by Donna Levinstone and Gavin Pretor-Pinney. The painting here is one she made during the workshop.

Photographer’s Dilemma

Terry Alby, member 40,752, wrote this poem for our Gallery Editor, Ian Loxley. He told us it’s about old photographers who love all the beauty that abounds and has the alternative titles of “Old Photographer’s Don’t Die Young!” or “Don’t Blame the Lens”

“Underdog”

Lorra Rudman sent us several of her poems but this one, entitled “Underdog”, is her favourite and was written in 1984.

Underdog

Cloudy is the underdog
Who dresses all in grey
But has she not the right to joy
As any Sunny day?

She reaches out her rolling strength
To charge me full and strong
To lift me high on passion arms
To nurture me along.

The rays of Sun are always warm
He’s simple to define
But Cloudy’s the romantic one
Whose dark deserves to shine.

© Lorra Rudman 1984