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ARTS AND CULTURE

Cloud meditations

  • 02 October 2017

 

Selected poems

 

Cloud meditation

Even when I was a child,

I had a distinct intuition that I had lived

previous lives in which I was trying to

 

enlighten others around me. I find

most people are not receptive, and, to

an astonishing degree, they think that

 

they know so much more than I do

when the truth of the matter is that

they know barely anything of what

 

they speak at all.

I spoke with someone the other day

who told me about a person who gave

 

workshops on cloud meditations,

that after anyone took a class of his

they looked at the sky differently.

 

Although when that teacher

wanted to meet with the person

I spoke with at twilight to gain

 

a different perspective on looking at

the sky, they didn't go since they said

it was too hot at that time of the day.

 

I neither believe in someone who

teaches cloud meditations,

which resonates with such new age

 

shallowness it could be what

the Fort River looks like after

a drought summer, with no rain for

 

six weeks; or anyone who doesn't

follow through on anything due to

the heat at a certain time of day

 

if it really has the import for them

that they claim. I would trust neither

person with any modicum of truth.

 

Whatever truth you could offer them

they would hand it back to you, and

say, this isn't truth, this is just

 

another cloud in the sky.

Whereas, an artist or writer invested

in their craft, a J. M. W. Turner,

 

painting clouds, and not just

giving classes on meditating on them;

or, myself, might write:

 

     clear summer day —

     clouds shapeshift and vanish

     over the Peace Pagoda.

 

 

 

Ode to the letter 'A'

Initial vowel

that always reminds us that

 

we are beginners who are

about to begin, where would

 

we be without you? How

would our school year

 

dreams of the best report

cards be without you to strive

 

toward? Where would our

ability to describe a sneeze

 

be without the stress on you,

leaving God bless standing

 

alone as an answer to achoo!

And what about apple?:

 

the delicious and hardy

fruit of the discontent

 

in the garden between

Adam and Eve that provides

 

the first soft syllable before

that lusty crunch past

 

the skin and into the juicy

white pomaceous flesh?

 

What would our physicians

do when placing down that

 

popsicle stick tongue

depressor, as they peer

 

into our mouths and

look into our throats,

 

asking us to say ah, if not

for you? Where would

 

we all be if we didn't have

you to depend on when

 

we needed to express our

appreciation in our daily

 

salutations with one another

if we could not even begin to

 

utter auf weidersehen or y'all?

How would we ever possibly

 

think to start all of the words

that begin with a

 

in