On an unseasonably warm day in Februrary

Here's a poem I hope you'll like. It's got clouds and so do we, though ours might be a little different. And a terrific wind here, too. If you're reading this in Morgantown, you know; if not, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway: clouds are interesting, aren't they? A kind of narrative, quick or slow.

The poem is by Laura Jensen, from Bad Boats, a hard-to-find-but-so-worth-it book (Ecco, 1977). This poem would also be excellent for a sound and line analysis (one of my favorite assignments, as my students know), if you like to do that sort of thing in your free time.


The Cloud Parade

In deference to the cloud parade,
the horse has shed its winter red,
stamped its last horseshoe out of the shed,
and left no forwarding address.
The heavens turn furniture,
attics and beds, men with mustaches
heels over heads; they cover the sun
to a gloomy shade,
in deference to the cloud parade.

Scarves! Echoes! Pavilions!
The meat grain in bacon, the star-stun
in roast, the bone down the well, the moon
down the wane, the smoke from the fireplace,
beautifully made,
in deference to the cloud parade.