Nature Memoir VIII

    Is it a cloud or a contrail that has unfurled and breathes wide, like a log or barrel or blade that rolls across the sky? Another one too behind it, just parallel enough you could mistake the two for gentle and even waves that caress the shore. It is wider still. A cleaver that follows behind like the flattest shockwaves, rippling in slow motion.

    Such an assembly of various cloud formations that orchestrate the sky. Thin sheets no more translucent than frost. Archipelagos of splatters like white islands. An unusually concentric square tile of cloud, combed downward. What a painting of ghosts. The ghosts slice, rake, shoot, and spray the air with white knives and shotgun shells. Salted and slashed heaven, ash and ivory peppered through...