[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text]This is the winning poem in the Cloud Poetry Competition that we ran with Candlestick Press. Lesley’s poem will appear in the forthcoming leaflet from Candlestick Press, Ten Poems about Clouds.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Hazy, Massed, Dappled

after Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Annuaire Méteorologique 1802

Hazy, massed, dappled, their cotton shifts, their furs and velvets; bringers of lambs’ tails and almond-blossom, suspended ceilings of heartbroken thunder and storm-damaged childhoods – you are never as alone as you think you are. But in the walled garden all that fills you is sky and the wisps of someone else’s weathers: spring snow, a rag of fire in a bare tree, roofs smoking with dew-mist. A cirrus of midges. Then sunlight bursting each pane of glass as it passes, like a housemartin crashing softly against the picture-rails. Afternoon darkening in all its parlours and pigeon-holes of grey. Now move hands like clouds (seven times). Carry tiger to mountain.

© Lesley Saunders, 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Lesley Saunders is the author of several books of poetry, including Cloud Camera, a book of poems about the dream lives of scientific instruments and medical techniques (Two Rivers Press 2012). She has performed her work at literary festivals and on the radio, and has worked on collaborative projects with artists, sculptors, musicians, photographers and dancers. Otherwise, she works as an independent researcher in education. www.lesleysaunders.org.uk[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]