The clouds bloom

The clouds bloom

And billow

Flowering on the horizon

A Joni Mitchell chorus

Rolling and tumbling

Slipping and sliding

The gulls have taken lessons

From a cutpurse

The tops from ice creams

Are plundered

Chips are sundered

The roll of thunder

Out at sea

Brings the world a little closer

To my door

From the window

I see both sides

As they go by

The weather has all the character

Of a gothic novel

Dark shadowy figures

Dance in tall castles

With jagged parapets

And twisted turrets

There is no escape from thunder

When it calls

It shatters through the morning

A glass bowl on a window sill

Breaks

The sea is a disaster

Of roiling grey

I am safe and warm

On the other side

Of the window pane

As mothers pushing

A carriage

Full of love and anxious

Attachment

Quicken their step.

Hurrying home

To lay their bundle down

Before

Collapsing into the

Chardonnay.