Monet Above the Clouds

Lifted above the fleece,

The dreamers sail in sunlight,

Fleeing from coming dawns

Above the whales.

Some scan shimmers

Off the wrinkled silver

Surface of the waves,

Settled like thin foil

Over welled up depths

That rest salt heavy

Over the earth's long

Planetary seam of

Molten disgorged fire.

The drifting quilt

Of cotton clouds,

Our tiny throb of pulse

Up high, our hum

Of forward flight

All whisper to stay the

Writing hand of sun,

And render blind the

Turning curve of

One more spin

Of planetary day.

We drift like gnats

Across imaginary

Strings of longitude,

Our tiny roar muffling

The giant breath

Of quiet below.

A path shows there

Across far-off waters,

Slipped through cloud

Tufts and trailed by

Flashing needles of gleam.

It snakes from sun to shade

To back to shine and off

To distant vanishings,

Like shiny footstones

Of an impossible stream,

A disappearing path  

To tempt our feet

And souls where

They may never go.

© Erik Bendix