Cumulus - Aug 10 2020

 

Cumulus

Aug 10 2020

That day, the clouds looked like clouds.

Thick and fluffy cotton puffs

dotting the sky

resembling nothing at all.

No flower-pots, dragons, angry gods.

No shape shifters drifting past,

no dark sinister thunderheads

or grey blanket of stratus.

Our short-cut brains

can't help making sense

seeing patterns everywhere.

Creating stories

out of thin air

and condensed water vapour,

in the same way we connect the dots

to explain who we are.

But this is summer, and our minds are at rest

lying on our backs

on the grass looking up.

Almost unblinking, in a near hypnotic trance

of heat and sky

and timelessness

in silence, side by side.

Not the awkward silence

you feel pressure to fill,

but just comfortably present;

sure of each other 

ourselves

and the perfect summer weather

on an idle afternoon.

An ant

is crawling up my leg

zigzagging frantically,

seeking out the chemical scent

that will return it to earth.

Instead of bushing it away, I let it be,

examining the sensation

of its tiny bustling legs 

with scientific detachment,

a curious observer

taking careful note.

As if the ground had welcomed me in

while wholly subsumed by sky.

As if disembodied,

exempt from time.

Today was one of those rare cloudless days. That dry hot high pressure weather that comes with a strong west wind. The kind of day the air feels pure and utterly transparent.

For some reason, it brought to mind cotton puff cumulus clouds, and that combined with my lazy mood to create this trifle of a poem.

It tries to capture the feel of utter contentment on a summer afternoon with nothing to do; that hypnotic sense of timelessness and expansiveness that feels both depersonalizing and empowering, as if the boundaries of ego had dissolved and you were one with the universe. I think the detached observation of the ant is very Zen-like, almost a version of meditation. But here, the writer is a scientist: observing from behind glass, objective and non-interfering.

But there are also ideas, not just mood. Because seeing patterns in clouds says everything about us: our pattern-seeking brains and our busy monkey minds, as well as our natural imperative for story-telling: that we create narrative and seek out cause and effect, even when there is none.

I also like the word “present”, because “presence” captures that feeling of quiet companionship: the sense of acceptance; the freedom to be yourself; the unconditionality. It also makes me think of the quality of attachment you see in a forever marriage in which they have moved beyond self-consciousness and infatuation and exhaustion to that enviable state of comfortable coupledom.

I've always been attracted to close observation and microcosm. In this poem, the aperture moves out as well as in, and gets as big and small as one could imagine (short of the subatomic!): from the vastness of the cloudless sky to a tiny solitary ant. I think this tight focus and dwelling on detail reinforces the feeling of timelessness and leisure: that there is no pressure of what comes next in a busy schedule; no particular destination or outcome; and no need to justify oneself by being productive or efficient or even of use.