Cloud Watching

I have fallen to cloud watching again
The mares’ tails and mackerel sky
Of coming storm foretold
Gather my senses to a new height
And remind me to look up

In the swelling and scattering of form
I think I see shapes surface
Portends of passion
Like the moisture that gathers
On my tongue before we kiss

I feel the warm earth at my back
Thirsty for rain and asking
To be lifted up, washed away
So the leaves of my body shudder, turn
And arch toward the sky

Suddenly, you appear above me
Advancing the smell of water
Your body darkens the sky
Your belly is dark in shadow
Exposing me in this front

But you still completely in a hush
before the clouds open
and you dare me to surrender us both

Heart becomes heat and thoughts flee like birds
In the exploration of our fingers comes rain

Sweeping over landscapes
And plowing rows in the dirt above our heads

Clouds meet and rise, meet and rise again
Releasing and drinking us into a deep well
An ancient tomb of earth and water

I do not know when you disappear
Only that the force of my expansion
Absorbs you and moves up

To hear the far off sound of earth
Being sung into creation
Hovering and weightless

Until the invisible condenses
Until the drenched skin of reality
Seeps into me again

Only this time, I am filled to the brim
And laughing