Final day of the clouds challenge. Thank you Paul Brookes, Gaynor Kane and Julian Day for your wonderfully inspiring photography. It has been a pleasure finding adequate words to accompany it. You can see the last set of photos here.

Worlds in the sky

All worlds are there, here,
just out of reach, above birds,
borne on their wings,
wind-patterned,

fashioned by snow and sand
from desert oceans, ice fields,
forests of cloud-trees, frost ferns.

Night and day are cradled there,
the stars, moonlight silver and sun-gold.

We reach up to mould malleable cloud
to our fancies, our fears,
never touching their self-creation.

Feet tethered by unseen currents
to clay and the rippling pelt of the earth,
we yearn for weightlessness,
to overcome the mockery of birds.

Perhaps we should learn to love
what we have, the green, the blue,
the flower-carpet, the columned cathedral-treed,
the river-running and ocean-lapping.

Before…