Clouds

(In Response to Shanny Jean Maney’s ‘Writing Prompts for 5-Year Olds with Writer’s Block’)

Clouds? What gives!

Clouds give rain, clouds give shade,
some thin clouds create optical phenomena
so pretty and rare as to make rainbows blush.
Clouds give inspiration.
Clouds give us reasons to look up and smile.

Clouds, what’s with them?

They’re beautiful! They’re fluffy and fun,
they’re dark and brooding,
thick and heavy, light and ethereal.
Clouds are like rivers, too dynamic to ever be the same twice.
Clouds are like people, all of them different.
Also like snowflakes.
Clouds give snowflakes!
I forgot that one earlier.

Do clouds laugh?

Of course! And they tell jokes!
I think most of the time though they play jokes on us.
On days when clouds from down here are nothing but a grey formless infinity
up there I think they are having the time of their lives.
I think they save the best sunsets for themselves
I think the clouds that they don’t show us
are the ones that most definitely look like things.
We only get the junior-league clouds that look like things.
They get the clouds that surely look like
an abominable snowman playing with a seahorse,
or the Justice League,
or the Fibonacci sequence.
Clouds give us a reason to use our imagination

Do clouds talk to one another?

Of course they do. They say things such as:
Ah, cirrostratus, how’s the weather up there?
Nyuck nyuck nycuk
I think they say other things too.
Look at those man-made clouds they say. The contrails.
They are straight and boring – not as pretty as we are.
Where is the freeform! The whimsicalness? The fun?!
We brave cumulus clouds help keep the earth cool,
those imposters just make it hotter.
Pshaw! They ruin the pretty sunsets we make.
They don’t even have our sexy Latin names!
They aren’t like us. I don’t like them.
Oh, and mushroom clouds, remember those?
Smog and fumes are also man-made.
Clouds weren’t meant to be created by man.
Why do they continue trying make clouds
when we give so much beauty for free?

© Jacob Dodson