Sue Shaw, Member 55,742, is enjoying her membership of the Cloud Appreciation Society.  She told us she’s been travelling  lately and watching a lot of lumpy clouds and finding shapes and faces almost endlessly.  It inspired her to write the two poems below.  She says  they are “similar, but different— and are products of that shape finding”

Image:  A Cumulus elephant spotted over Geelong, Victoria, Australia spotted by Heather Prince

Clouds Change and Rearrange!

It can take a cloud but seconds
To change its shape or place…
To re-form from a castle
To a dragon or a face!

Why…with a lot of lumpy clouds
You can read a fairy tale.
By looking all across the sky
In a zig-zag sort of trail.

There’s a princess in a lovely gown
And the castle…her abode…
The alligator in the moat
The prince…but as a toad!

There’s a puppy and a kitten
And a flying bird or two…
A monster and a gremlin…
All in shades of white on blue!

You can create a story line
By reading what is there,
With just imagination
And ice crystals in the air!

To play ‘pretend’ is so much fun
With daydreams in your mind
When you relax and watch the clouds…
But be careful, for you’ll find

That if you wait, your cast will change,
And the players that you’ve got…
Will all drift off and fade away…
And you’ll need a brand new plot!

Faces?

There are faces in the clouds–
Monsters wrapped in stormy shrouds…
Or a laughing, pug nosed leprechaun,
Or someone with a top hat on!

An alligator–snout and eyes
A giant fish–a whale-sized prize!
Dogs and puppies, kittens, cats
Birds, a butterfly and bats!

Castles, towers…places where
Rapunzel might let down her hair!
Realistic or a fantasy…perhaps some fairy tales
Where dragons and white unicorns have golden horns and scales!

Just sit back on a cloud-rich day
And let your mind run wild
It doesn’t matter what your age–
A Senior, teen, or child….

When you’re in a laid back situation
With just a bit of imagination…
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!…
Are carved in the clouds of a summer sky!

© Sue Shaw

Melanie McDowell, Member 58,909 thoroughly enjoys 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

Lucia Wilson was delighted to see the Cloud Appreciation Society featured on BBC Breakfast recently with an interview with Gavin Pretor-Pinney. It reminded her of this poem that she wrote over 10 years ago as she was reflecting on how often people in London move around the city without looking up.

Have You Seen the Sky Today

Alarm clock
Bathroom mirror
Dodgy reflection
Breakfast TV
Chirpy presenters
Caffeine injection
Underground warriors battle for seats
Struggle for dominance
Office door
Computer switch-on
Lights and…

.. ACTION!

Email, voicemail,
males and females
Greetings, meetings,
decisions, decisions
Outcome, plans and human factors
Negotiation, confrontation, solutions and laughter.

Some flirty lies, as time flies, the day nearly over
The players bow to mute applause,
Retreat commences
Journey reversed, routine well-rehearsed
with occasional abstentions

Alarm set
eyes close as sleep lays prey
But here’s a thought before you dream

Have you seen the sky today?

by Lucia Wilson / www.luciawilson.co.uk

Image Credit: Adrian Wakefield, Altocumulus stratiformis undulatus, also known as a “mackerel sky”, spotted over West London, England

This is the first of two poems by Patricia Laurence, Member 11,781.  She wrote this following the poetry workshop that she attended as part of the Orkney Sky Gathering.

Two                                       Contrails

  in the                                 sky

     had                              formed

       an X                       was it

          a kiss                a cross

             X marks        the spot

               a choice    a sum

                     a  wrong

                      answer

               look           again

             it                      drifts

           and                      fades

         smudges                   into

       nothing-                        ness

    so after                              all

perhaps                                   a  kiss

Patricia Laurence, May 2024

Image credit: A contrail filled sky over Wimborne in Dorset, England by Lindsay Gray

David Brown wrote to us saying “at the time of writing I was living on a hill in rural Northland, NZ. Very late one night I stepped outside and saw the strangest cloud formation I’ve ever seen: thin, perfectly regular lines of cloud stretching across the sky. They looked for all the world like the perfect lines drawn in sand by a Japanese wooden rake; you could see the stars between them and the undersides were lit up by the moon. It struck me like bars of a window. I went inside and wrote this simple haiku:”

Moonlight rakes the clouds
Etching fine silver lines that
Starlight fears to cross

© David Brown

Image Credit: A view above the cloud streets, Union, Indiana, US. © Beth Fluto

Anette Prehn, Member 63,419, appreciates the sky from her home in Denmark.  This poem was translated for her by Heidi Flegal, who suggested she send it to us.  It was used as lyrics, set to music by Rasmus Skov Borring in 2019.  Image:  Altocumulus with virga over Denmark © Soren Hauge

Like Shifting Clouds on High

A cloudscape ever-changing,
an endless voyage in the sky:
travellers re-arranging
their shapes as they go by.
In splendid, silent swirls they show
that wonders come and wonders go.
They offer up a lesson,
this whimsical procession
of shifting clouds on high.

As children we lay gazing
at fairy tales in shades of white.
In dappled sunlight lazing
we felt profound delight.
To see it through a childʼs bright eyes
– this big parade of small goodbyes –
recalls whatʼs lost, yet seeing
brings back the joy of being
with shifting clouds on high.

The boundless white collective
that travels on the windy tide
gives us a new perspective,
and mirrors whatʼs inside.
From Natureʼs wisdom take your cue.
She says: “Find that courageous you!
Your heart from joy and sorrow
can shape a new tomorrow
like shifting clouds on high.”

By Anette Prehn, Member 63,419 (© 2019)

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

Moira Lazarus is a song-writer and poet from London.  This is a poem she wrote a few years ago, just watching the London sky darkening.  Image: A sunset over Shepherds Bush, London, UK. (Red sky at night, Shepherd’s delight). © David Stening

From My Bedroom

I lie on my back and watch clouds travel
slow and thick
inked by the falling dusk, folds of velvet
blanking out the light.

This, then, is night.
A tipping over into another world,
an encroaching spell.

The sky holds pewter clouds now and is the colour of moonstone.
Second by second they are darkening faster,
blackening the roofs, hovering over chimneys like old smoke,
the sun almost gone.

Inside, closed curtains and artificial light prepare to
ward off the visceral intensity of night.

But I would like to fly
straight into this sky
ride the clouds to wherever they blow.
I would like to let the wild night flow.

Dawn will be here soon enough.

© Moira Lazarus, October 2016

Melody Serra, Member 56,638 from New York City, recently sent a poem she wrote about her membership and receiving our Cloud-a-Day emails.  Image:  A Circumhorizon Arc over Colorado, US.   © Keelin

Subject: Cloud-a-Day

 On August 29, 2021 I became a cloudspotter
                            member 56,638 of the Cloud Appreciation Society!
everyday since then, an email with a photo 
             taken by another member, of the sky, lover of blue
  to think that we are all part of the same sun-filled dome 
            to think that with our creative minds we can build shapes out of 
condensed water vapor 
            it all gives me chills	( the good kind )
  close to 600 emails have 
             brought me closer to
                                    skyscapes, landscapes, and seascapes around the world
                                                have taught me the difference between cirrus, cumulus, stratus, 
                                   cumulonimbus
                                   fluctus, asperitas, noctilucent, lenticular
                                              have taught me that the beams of light that shine through the gaps 
                                   in clouds, 
                                   like ladders of light reaching down to us, are called 
                                              crepuscular rays
                                   maybe i too will see the green flash one day
	                                      or the fluffy cumulus clouds reflecting on salt flats in Humahuaca
                                   or the optical effect, stunning color play, pearlescent
                                               called circumhorizon arc
		                                           for now i count myself so lucky, 
                                                                                  each sky greets me and beckons me
                                                                                                                       “what cloud do you see?”

© Melody Serra