Clouds

I'm sitting here, waking up. Coffee at hand, I sit at my computer to do my morning ritual.

I have been captivated by the clouds rolling by in the sky, outside my window.

I have always loved clouds, and I don't know why. Looking up at them always gives me joy and hope.

The sun is edging through a big fluffy herd of clouds right now, suddenly blinding me with his intensity.

The clouds move steadily, languidly, almost sensually across the sky. Touching and coming apart to reveal the sun.

These are rain clouds; the darkness of their skin betrays that. I don't mind. I'm a rain worshiper. Rain washes everything clean, and you don't have to shovel it off the sidewalk and your driveway.

I remember as a kid, I would lie down on the grass on a mild summer day and watch the clouds drift. A cloud meditation. Cloud Zen. After a while, I would feel the ground moving under my body. An illusion no doubt, but I felt the Earth's revolution. It spoke to me.

There have been many a time I have spent staring up, conjuring images of unicorns and ballet shoes made up of water mass. In the sky a rhinoceros can hold a daisy.

Every time I travelled by plane, I would stare at the cloud waves underneath and wish I could walk on them, swim in them. One of my students once gave me a copy of a photo he took on a plane. The clouds had sculptured the image of Jesus Christ, long robes, long hair, beard, with a compassionate look on his gentle face and exposed palms at his side. I'm not a religious fanatic but that was awe-inspiring. No one wrote about him walking on clouds.

There have been times as I was walking or driving along and glance at the horizon, finding to my delight that the clouds have formed a mountain to flank this mostly flat city. I would find myself mesmerized with Mount Kilimanjaro, or Everest where Mississauga should have been. It thrilled me, because I love mountains and miss them, almost as much as I miss the sea. The clouds fulfilled this craving majestically.

Then there are the miracle cloud scenes as they call them. Color-filled streams and golden ribbons of light cascading through the clouds in one spot convince my fanciful soul that it's a god sighting, or the way to Nirvana.

Clouds wear many gowns of color. From brooding grey to party pink. They are all delightful. When it's cloudy, the sky is decked out in all its moods. A sky of many faces. A wounded face about to crumble into a flood of tears. A face of an ecstatic toddler with all his toys scattered around him. A face of a woman in love.

Yes, I adore clouds, and as I write this, the sun is bursting through again. He appears full force and head on. Then the clouds gently cover him like a playful lover. All I see is his outline now. Behind the cloud arms, the sky is peeking through. There he is again in his lovers arms. Blue with long trails of cloud tresses, hidden yet again by his lover's mass as she enfolds him.

What a glorious day of clouds it will be.