The Clouds by John Emery

I.

Biped, your worshipful eyes don’t flatter me
your gestures that dissect my shape

You, anchored, could not comprehend
Drifting beyond control and desire
my body constantly reformed
        a whim
                    of the    wind


II.

Sometimes, the sun warms my back
moist updraft nourishes me

Sometimes, I bask in equilibrium



III.

You gape at my individuality
praise me with imaginary names
but cannot see how my incomplete
anatomy conforms to vast patterns
stratospheric topographies of only
white

 

IV.

I am no closer to the stars



V.

From altitude humanity is invisible
Only your patchy ravages remain
it is as if the landscape

is    undoing         itself.

 

VI.

Like an ancestor’s memory
the ocean vapor returns to me
                                    cleansed.
 

VII.

I vanish, I reincarnate
I drip down a leaf
I blow up a mountain
I spend a blue eternity in ice
I always will be
            free or not

there’s something
for your monks
whose bald heads I have caressed
in high temples