Both Sides? Now?
Could objectivity be a sum of uncertainties? –Jed Perl
I, too, have looked at clouds from both sides now.
I’ve kicked the tires, given them a thump.
Clouds, they’re just water, thinking its misty thoughts;
all thunderbolts & lightning, no insight.
A cloud is always on a journey to
not being a cloud. Up here, everything
floats. Clouds, they have no sides, only banks,
heavy with the coin of the realm: silence
(that’s the wind, not them, making that racket).
I know clouds perfectly well, even at
this distance: only the fog is intimate.
Doesn’t mind if you mess up its lipstick.
Likes to keep it on the down low. But clouds…
clouds simply want to be alone, without
your projection of ice cream or castles
or anything else. They’re moving on.
Can’t be helped. You gotta move, child. A voice
out of a cloud, serene, detached. Moving…
Is moving through this world without letting
its madness touch you privilege, or grace?
This, this is success in life (also failure).
A magic circle drawn with a stick of
rain in a storm of chalk—the paradox
of magical thinking… well, whatever.
We’re a little busy here; these circles
won’t draw themselves. Throw in a pentagram,
Charlie, see if that helps. Worry a medal,
a stone, your thumb circling like a vulture.
Ask where & Venn. Have another cup of
coffee, another slice of thoughts, prayers.
Better to watch your step. Or stand, stock-still.
Or sit, spinning, until it reaches your throat—
lies, bile, a scream cut short: “The Elect.”
These clouds of unknowing, they never seem
to move an inch. One misstep. A line, blurred.
Protection? Projection? Unmoving… unmoved.
The cloud in the mirror, made out of breath.
The Opinions I’ve Kept to Myself
Voices in the hall for a little dog
to woof in warning at, they ebb & flow.
Standing on street corners with no purpose
except to catch the eye that looks away.
They crowd the back of the café, away
from the windows, where no one wants to sit
because the light is bad. They mutter to
themselves; they chuckle into coffee cups.
They are waiting to answer a question
that no one will ask. It’s all for the best.
They have a lot of papers, old books,
to read in the companionable silence
of the Here, the hurricane eye of Now.
When you smile at them, they try to smile back.
Gregory Crosby is the author of Said No One Ever (2021) and Walking Away from Explosions in Slow Motion (2018).