Tuesday, October 25, 2011

In Explanation


 The old woman in the clouds
tosses evidence of her existence
out the window—

buckets of rain water,
and bed feathers
shaken out like flakes
in early December.

She lets the birds out of their cages
in April,
and sweeps with such vehemence
the trees on earth bend.

She leaves the light burning long
on a summer night;
in winter, when the days grow short
she turns in early,
leaving us all in the dark.

12 comments:

Judith said...

Fantastic!
I LOVE THIS. LOVE THIS!

Tabor said...

Very nice. It flows from your heart. I can see the earth shifting in all these changes.

JeannetteLS said...

This is like a song.The buckets of rain water stanza did it for me. All by itself.

Love this.

Brian Miller said...

smiles...what blessings she showers on us continually...you capture it beautifully...

Out on the prairie said...

Mother Nature always plays for all of us.

Barbara said...

If there can be a man in the moon, why not a woman in the clouds? It sounds like she is actually a lot more useful than he is!

Friko said...

Is her name Mother Nature or, possibly, Frau Holle? In the children's tale she shakes out her large eiderdown bedding and snow falls on earth.

This is a lovely little poem.

Pauline said...

j - sometimes taking a child's eye view results in some grownup observations ;)

Tabor - poetry states prose in a new way

Jeannette - the universe sings a song, doesn't it?

thanks Brian M!

Barbara - weather may as well be fun...

OOTP - sometimes it seems she doesn't play fair, but those are our rules...

lol Barbara!

Friko - I don't know that tale but I like the idea.

June said...

Oh! it's perfect.

Pauline said...

thanks June :)

Flea said...

So beautiful.

Reya Mellicker said...

She does indeed! In my old community in San Francisco, we called her Goddess.