Vyacheslav Konoval is a poet from Kyiv, Ukraine. Many of his poems have been translated into Spanish, French, Italian and Polish but this is one he wrote in English for CAS members to enjoy.

Image: “A Sunset over Kiev, Ukraine” © Vera Uzhva

A dark blue cloud crawls across the sky

A dark blue cloud crawls across the sky,
It rains every day.
As if punishment is pouring from God.

Fluffy fresh caresses,
crowded street of
stockpiled ice fragments.

My body doesn’t obey
It seemed to be dozing,
limps tiredly in laziness.

© Vyacheslav Konoval

Minnie Biggs, Member 4,330, recently sent her poem about the skies over Bhutan, which is situated on the Himalayas’ eastern edge. We’ve accompanied it with an image from Michael Ellis “Aladdin’s lamp spotted over Bhutan, South Asia“

Go to Bhutan

Cloud heaven
we are looking at the clouds in the distance
we are below the clouds
we are in the middle of the clouds
We are above the clouds,
Looking at more clouds
in the clouds is different
Than above or below
Wet damp not rain wet
And the mountains
That meet the clouds
Embrace the clouds
Are embraced by the clouds
Intermingle with the clouds
seldom one without the other
In Bhutan
Clouds
Heaven

© Minnie Biggs

Nick Houvras, Member 7,367 sent us one of his recent poems.

Image: Crepuscular Rays over Somerset, England © Helen Crawley

A Wish

Don’t you wish you were a cloud?

Flying free where ever the wind sent you!

Looking down from up above on sunny ground!

Or wet leaves you sent your water to.

And then you slowly disappear from the heavens that held you.

Just as the earth holds us we too go with or without a sin.

But everyone asks where did that cloud go?

And so do all of us here now on Mother Earth!

© Nick Houvras, 2023

Sara Austin Bailey, member 50,249 sent us this cloud-inspired poem from her home in North Carolina.

Kate Edge, Member 30,633, wrote this piece whilst busily working on new cloud paintings for an exhibition.  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

Buckshot Dot, AKA Dee Strickland Johnson, sent one of her more recent poems.  The image we’ve chosen to accompany it is a sunrise over Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain 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

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

Romano Zeraschi sent us this recent cloud inspired poem.  We’ve paired it with a sunrise over Sumirago, Varese, Italy by Paolo Bardelli.

Nuvole:
anime che svolano
addensano
e svaporano
cartografie di sogni
illusioni.
Stampigliano promesse
scambiano timidi baci
e umide di timidi amori
vezzose e libere
scorrono e sbrigliano
nel superno abisso
senza paura.
Dipingono
cose che vorremmo
e non sappiamo
o ci fanno paura
minacciose
quando avanzano orridamente scure
per poi pentirsi
e piangere
e allora è una promessa
un pegno assoluto
uno squarcio che viene dal blu
dentro la fossa
del nostro esistere
giù nei meandri delle nostre attese.
Eccole che finalmente di nuovo scorrono
e sfarfallano rappacificate
eccole che indugiano pigre
decorando i plurimi cieli con nobili medaglie
di smalti ialini
e poi madrepore, ventagli di gorgonie e coralli.
Fantastiche creature:
talvolta assumono il tratto di un topolino
e allora paiono squittire
a volte son volpi, farfalle, uccelli
e allora si attende un guaito
il cinguettio garrulo di un fringuello, d’un cardellino civettuolo.
Più spesso scorrono liberamente festose come alunne d’un primo giorno di scuola
o s’indovinano in ricreazione
immerse in un fervore di beatitudini
dimentiche d’ogni campanella.
Osserviamole ora per ora
seguiamone le tracce nell’inseguimento infinito
mutevole ed eterno:
vederle in adunata
stringersi in circolo come sorelle
ci paiono intonare di lassù un coro
per poi obbedire ad un cenno imperscrutabile
e allontanarsi per punti cardinali diversi
a oltrepassare l’orizzonte o morire prima
magari a ovest, sciogliendosi nel tramonto.
E al mattino
rivestite di bianco
quando germogliano appena al primo orizzonte visibile
sbocciarsi poi in eteree
quasi fragranti e revolute forme
che si allontanano
divergono e poi s’adunano
accavallandosi in canyon e radure
e precipizi
e burroni
o talora vicendevolmente sgranarsi a festoni
in bianche molliche d’immaginarie catene
colline e pianure
e dissomiglianti montagne
disegnando .
Accade anche che una nube si compiaccia in splendido isolamento:
resti alta allo zenit
o sfiori gli orizzonti per una ronda circolare
d’una missione compunta e segreta.
Albe e tramonti susseguono
ed è allora che si ammantano di violetto
o in più tenui ametiste
tramutando in arancio o porporino.
Veleggiano in grumi vacui
in eburnei fiocchi galleggiano
pullulando talvolta in purpurei amorini
E non raramente si espandono
circonflesse o lenticolari
o si aggregano, rabbuiandosi in cumuli e nembi.
Man mano, il Grande Atlante si sfoglia:
isole e atolli e lagune compaiono
i reef d’una barriera corallina
istmi e favolosi fondali
e penisole e continenti
un tettonico scivolar di placche
milioni di anni in poche ore
minuti del nostro esistere.
Lassù c’è vita
condensa e compatta strati e substrati
ere geologiche in ore o minuti
e poi pianeti, costellazioni
lo sciame luminoso dei cirri, asteroidi vaporosi e soffici
e può anche accadere che irrompa un bolide non si sa da qual vento sospinto.
Ma questa è scienza
meteorologia astratta
geologia e geografia insieme
inesatta e purissima astronomia
quand’esse son lassù a giocare invece per gli eterni bimbi
per i cuori dell’infanzia
per noi solamente
per noi
piccoli e sperduti principi d’un pianeta perduto.

© Romano Zeraschi

Chris Tetley, Member 10,338, sent us this poem composed to encourage us to wonder what our lives would be like without clouds.  The image was one he took locally of the sky over Devon, UK.

The Gladness of Clouds

The sky would be an empty stage without its cast of varied cloud,
Lacking daily interest with no shapes its sphere to crowd.
Though sunny bright and pleasant, days would lose what cloudscapes bring,
And all those kindnesses and insults that our way they’re apt to fling.

And what would we then talk about to strike up conversation,
Those introductory lines expressing joy or indignation?
What future, outdoor outfitters that count on rain and snow,
The meteorological media whose raison d’être cloud is to know?

And what of temperate gardens that enjoy cloud cover’s hues,
All who so much benefit from its shifting greys and blues?
And those who like the chance to snuggle up safely with a book,
When a storm is raging beyond brave walls and cosy sheltered nook.

And where would be our literature, much music and the arts,
Without the different cloud types and the influence each imparts.
Gone would be the rivers and lakes on which we so rely,
Not fed from heaving boulder-burdened blister-bursting sky?

Then what of useful reference; what becomes of cloud computing,
And that foggy place to have your head where absent thought finds its rerouting?
No ninth to share its happiness, or edged with silver lining,
Misty metaphor forever lost and in need of redefining.

Heavenward contemplation would be little but blue-sky thinking,
Much lost as a source of inspiration, if sky from sea no longer drinking.
And leaden would lose its meaning as dread divide of sky and land,
Weather from being moods arbiter, then little help and rather bland.

No more those clouds chameleon-like that mark days start and end,
As from and towards night’s sunless vault they with glamour arrive and wend.
Unnoticed as if not present for every hour then in between,
Horizon’s margin brief inflamed, in distant solitude serene.

Then what of this society that so appreciates their wonder,
From timorous playful newborn cubs to roaring lions of fearsome thunder?
Where every form and unique shape that commands its keen attention,
Acquires an immortal presence, and to the wide world gets a mention.

A sky without vast mounds of vapour, wind-jostled or scenic set,
Would be a lesser world for all where hope and rainbow never met.
And I could no more live without this flock that cossets Gaia,
Than I could its welcome shade; its forms, and fancy to inspire.

© Chris Tetley

Annie Dillard, Member 46,119 sent us an anecdote of an encounter from a small ship in Antarctic waters. We’ve paired it with an image from “Cloudface 88” of Lenticularis over Skarsvåg, Nordkapp, Finnmark, Norway

“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

Lou Piccolo enjoys reading poetry and recently submitted this Haiku inspired by the sky. We’ve paired it with an image from our Photo Gallery of a spine-like contrail over Chester, England by Michael Hearne.

Clouds embroidering

white criss-cross stitches on a

bright summer-blue sky.

Melanie McDowell, Member 58,909 is thoroughly enjoying her membership of the Cloud Appreciation Society.  She told us “I am a poet and a lot of my poetry takes inspiration from the ever changing West of Ireland skies.  I also love reading others’ poetry, both contemporary and classic.  During Covid, I began the practice of choosing a word and poem for each day so I have built up a large bank of poetry, a lot of it sky inspired”.   We’ve paired her poem with an image by Tom Jenner, “A fair weather cloud day over Valentia Island in the south west of Ireland”

Home Turf
Sky thick as cream.
Ski slope clouds
lean into mountains.
Whitethorn bends arms
laden with blossom.
Grass banks quiver green.
Algaed mountain pass
through clods of cloud.
Rain reassures its patter.
Tarmacadam river
sheens purple.
Fuschia bells just
starting to ring out.
Mall Go Slow.
Rough as turf,
home.

© Melanie McDowell

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

Bonnie Boothroyd was driving and when she came over the crest of a hill and before her was a fascinating skyscape which inspired this poem.  We’ve paired it with an image from our gallery of Cumulonimbus over Bosse, Belgium © Sunwalker

Layers

The sky overhead hangs low,   leaden

threatening my mood

In the distance though,  a wide clear patch of fading blue

And off near the horizon

identically long and narrow

ephemeral            wingless            airships            hover

Yet another layer beyond

framed by the darkening springtime sky 

Cumulonimbus

explode to altitudes so

high they capture the glow 

of a sun       already set

and I wonder,   for folks

beneath those sun swelled clouds

does the sky hang

dark and low?

                                                b mackenzie boothroyd

Kathleen Janick, member 49,856, recently wrote this poem inspired by fog on the coast of Maine, USA

Ric Johnson wrote this poem after walking alongside the River Weaver in Cheshire, UK and was inspired by the clouds that appeared overhead. You can see more of his work on his website.

SKY PEBBLES

Tight knit, these pebbles
Although not knitted at all
If our brains were in place.

Magically magical
But truly, touchingly magical
Though impossible to touch.

As if some god had woven them
Having shouted at stray clouds
To form up and bunch in tight.

Just letting us know
Down here but looking up
That some gods value beauty.

Whether knit one, pearl one
Is this god’s speciality
Is unknown to me.

However tightly knitted they seem
We know each pebble
Has its own resolve in place.

The resolve to be fluidly individual
Unmindful of watchers
Careless of admiration.

And, of a sudden
As I looked
Change and separation all around.

Pebbles unformed themselves
Indifferent to me, or the god
And how we thought of them.

No longer pebbles
Neither galleons nor dragons
Whales, pigs nor eagles.

But spectacle and grandeur
Clouds shaping, reshaping
Each day of our lives.

Well, fancy that!

© Ric Johnson

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

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

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

David Oscarson, supporting member 40614 sent us this poem he recently composed. It centres around falling snow and encroaching clouds that cover the mountains.

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

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

Sherwin Berger, member 18,239, sent us his latest cloud inspired poem entitled “Nature’s Magicians”.

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

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

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

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

Kathleen Janick, member 49,856, recently wrote this poem inspired by the photograph above which was taken one morning in November off the coast of Maine.

This poem was written after opening an email from the Cloud Appreciation Society by
Sun-Hee Yang (Member 47,842), a poet based in South Korea

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

Sherwin Berger, member 18,239, sent us his cloud inspired piece, “Cloud Warriors of the Sky”

Writer and artist, Lorelei O’Connor, sent us this atmospheric poem accompanied by a photo taken by her son, Micheal.

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.

‘California Cloudscapes’ is a poem by Jeanie Greensfelder that was originally published in Birdland Journal 2019

With the Sun away,
weather came to play – stirring
breeze and sprinkling rain.

Wiltrud Dull sent this cloud inspired poem

Andy Lumborg, member 9,117, from Pontypool, Wales, sent us his latest cloud related poem entitled “Cloud Shadows”

Kathleen Janick, member 49,856, submitted this beautiful poem and accompanying image. The photograph reminded her of when her then you children, helped her paint a wall.