The ‘Beast’ Humbly Replies to the Chemist
“Why am I over here?” Sir, don’t you see?
We clouds roam the firmament, ‘megaform’… and drift free.
No need to be fearful, hypotensive, caught short
or strut around looking in places ‘we ought’.
Nor do we, as a rule, emit light or heat white.
As ‘cumulo-friends’ we’re not here to give fright.
High in the sky are utopian trysts!
Hugging land? Less lovely – we’re then fogs and mists.
Perhaps, sir, and I speak with some pride,
you might care to beg, borrow or buy the The Cloudspotter’s Guide
in which our terrestrial champion Gavin Pretor-P
extols ‘bodies without surface’ (and that’s Leonardo da V!)
© Julie Elizabeth Smalley 2009
