May Blythe of London, UK, wrote this poem on a very windy day in Lyme Regis, looking out over the sea in-between Golden Cap and the Cobb.

Ryoma’s mum, Alex, recently sent us this wonderful poem written by her son describing what he sees when he’s cloudspotting…

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

Yvonne Gray sent us this ‘group poem’ written during a very enjoyable and productive creative writing workshop that was held at the Cloud Appreciation Society Orkney Sky Gathering  last week.  Image: A sunset over the Isle of Shapinsay, Orkney Islands © Peter Amsden

Clouds

clouds to make stories from
clouds to make dreams of
cloud – a shawl round the hills of Hoy
cloud – a warning. Something just over the horizon

cloud – a backdrop for the sunset
cloud forever changing
clouds that swiftly pass – or linger
cloud – a harbinger

cloud that carries precious rain
clouds soft as pillows

we feel cloud when we’re enveloped in cloud
but see nothing
when we see clouds, we can’t be in them
although we wish to

cloud for the fiery sunset
cloud for the artist’s vision
cloud for music’s inspiration
cloud for the poet’s revelation

by Mark Donovan, Yvonne Gray, Patricia Laurence, Mike Nordin, Carien van Zwol

Stromness, Wednesday 8 May 2024

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

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. Here is another of his wonderful poems “Clouds”, written by Carl in August 2024. We’ve paired it with Mamma (Mammatus) spotted over Boca Raton, Florida by Andi & Ray Popkin

Clouds

The words trail after one another like
Echo in her final assertion
I am, I am, and you will hear it

The clouds trail after one another like
the repetition I can’t suppress
in my softer days, Cirra
beloved and wispy
high altitude,
untouchable

Lalia
my sister’s name never stays the same
nor mine,
we shift to our summer selves
Cumulo, Nimba

we rain and at last we tire
of shifting around the shapes of others
so finally, no longer beloved
we stand still

I am, I am, and you will hear it.

© Carl Zephyr

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

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

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

Chris Tetley, member 10,338, recently sent us this poem inspired by clouds and wonders if they sometimes mimic our daily lives.

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.

Cloud, cloud up in the sky,
Look at you! So very high
Wispy wonder in the blue,
I appreciate to look at you!

© Jessica Denyer
Aged 35 3/4

Paul Reddick, member 52,023, sent this lyric that he wrote for a friend who composes for, and runs an amateur women’s choir in Toronto.

Cindy Medina from Las Cruces, NM has sent two whimsical haiku poems for us to enjoy.

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

Christine Chatterton, member 52,072, sent us this photo and poem that she wrote.

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

Antonio Martínez, a calligrapher from Spain is passionate about clouds.  He told us, “I have dedicated 5 collages to Goethe’s poems in the original language, celebrating the work of Luke Howard: Atmosphäre, Cirrus, Cumulus, Stratus, Nimbus. They are handwritten in gothic script, with a square-tipped metal nib and ink on Strathmore toned gray A4 paper”. The image above is “Stratus” by J W Goethe.

Shirley Kearney, member 49,303, recently sent in this thoughtful poem.

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.

Nick Houvras, Member 7,367 sent us his poem “A Wish”

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

Emily Klenin (member 40676) sent us this poem from her home in Lancaster County, USA

Cloud watcher, Lois Cronholm-Neff, sent us this beautiful poem that she wrote for her husband almost 50 years ago.

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

A beautiful crowd of clouds, went tumbling across the sky,
And the Sun and Moon, perplexed, both just wondered “Why”.