Clouds

Clouds paint the blue sky
with watercolors of white and gray,
mingled with the golden light
of sunsets and sunrises.
They drift, lose their edges,
dissolve into one another.

Some call them heaven’s likeness.
I see clouds.
Only paint. Not heaven.

Yet even if it were,
within those gentle shapes,
the softest cloud
already argues with itself.

Gentle to the eye,
the cloud gathers charge in silence
until a path opens
to Earth in thunder and lightning.

Perhaps only after the thunder
fades, like a bell
losing its ring,
does quiet settle.

I close my eyes.
The bright light falls away.
For a moment,
there is only quiet.
Then I slowly open them.

The clouds are gone.
I still see their shapes,
clear in my mind,
a small heaven within.