Je suis un nuage sur pieds
Rempli d’humidité…

the world’s breath
mouth full of lightning…

All life is still.
No breeze…

Clouds, they live in a theatrical realm
Behind nights curtain they quietly roam…

Clouds give rain, clouds give shade,
some thin clouds create optical phenomena…

A one legged dinosaur A black hole confused
A woolly boot and Two pairs of shoes…

See clouds all laced with pink
“How marvellous!” I think…

white clouds
brushed on the sky…

What beauty lies before us spread
When once we lift our eyes…

My head aches
and a thumping migraine…

They scene change, never discolouring the sky’s stage
Amuse, bruise, goad our optimism and threaten us…

With my old rod I am fishing, sitting waiting wishing;
That those watery folk below, were not my rig a’missing…

You belong to what?
How sweet
How English…

I’ve seen castles in the sky
wild geese as they fly…

Perched on high above the sprawl
I take it in the endless crawl…

I wish clouds could speak
I would send you words in fluffy streaks…

Amongst the chaos high above
Endless clouds they push and shove…

Pannus lurk, ominous on the horizon,
Somewhere in the haze…

I miss the mist
That hangs high…

When I wake up very late
The dancing clouds they never wait…

Black ink blotch clouds imbue the West dusk sky
Nebulous noctilucent drift ethereally up high…

And Wordsworth said: “I wandered lonely as a cloud…” But are clouds ever lonely?

Clouds have travelled where I never have.
They’ve crested the Himalayan peaks…

Obsidion umbrella that rules the night
With random specks of dancing light…

These are the clouds
I love to see –
giant islands,
promontories…

I sat and I watched as the clouds sailed on by,
Majestically striding and marching so high…

I see horses galloping like saffron wind
Across the sunset prairie sky…

The giant sky what a fun place to play,
Magical white forms to uncover today…

They enter on their own time
shifting eternally until called down to earth as rain…

A geography of clouds drifts
across my sun-bed sky…

Not yet
A droplet in your mother’s azure eye…

I see you
And when I catch sight of you
You have already been seen…

Genus stratus lies low in the hills
Waiting for strays and lost wills…

Would you think a person was crazy if they told you a cloud was pink?

Sunset

In the blue canvas of the sky
Painted with blue and white
Bright feathers of the sky, slashed with pink
Suspended in light
Riding in the colourful space
I am the artist of the world

Ellie (aged 9)
St John’s College School, Cambridge, UK
(you can also read the other poems by pupils from St John’s College School)

Clouds

The voice of the sun
Told me to bring my paints out
To paint the sky.
To shape the clouds
With my skilful brushstrokes
White wisps
Scarlet smudges
Pink pinpricks
An endless task lies ahead of me
The clouds busy forming
From my restless hands
The shy filling and unfilling
Blue over white over blue
For all eternity.

Mia (aged 8)
St John’s College School, Cambridge, UK
(you can also read the other poems by pupils from St John’s College School)

Canvas of Blue Sky

Earth’s chiffon scarf
Everlastingly changed
Being stretched along this blue canvas of eternity
God
With his giant paintbrush
Never running out
On this cerulean ceiling
Of the sky

Freddie (aged 9)
St John’s College School, Cambridge, UK
(you can also read the other poems by pupils from St John’s College School)

MAGONIA – THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS

I see a crystal city all of blue moonlight and fashioned out of air;
I see the men who walk there and they are beautiful and wear gold on their hair;
I see their ships of Elven light
Sailing in the silver night,
Calling to me ….
Above the hills of Heaven, and I’ll climb them when my soul is ready to fly.

Oh listen to the starlight as it whispers through the canyons of the clouds;
Moonsilver stairways, soft-echoing to the lilting singing sounds;
Laughter and feasting there,
Voices as clear as air
Singing to me ……
Oh am I dreaming in my longing for the legend to be real?

Oh I can dwell no longer in this shadowland where the rain is coldly falling;
New moon on Magonia, ethereal, to my heart is calling;
Oceans of clouds away,
Songs of a brighter day
Call me away …….
I hear the Elfin music of fair Magonia, and Earth is nothing but a dream;
I cannot look behind me, for Earth is but the dark side of a dream.

© Indrani Ananda

The Sky Painter

What wouldn’t I give to be ‘The Sky Painter’
My canvas as vast as the heavens.
My brush strokes commanding the weather.
Delicate washes
Extravagant oils.
A rainbow pallet exploding with joy.
What wouldn’t I give to be ‘The Sky Painter’

© Sheila Sansom