Above the road, the sky displayed long strips of clouds
Like half-assembled, half-dissembling shrouds.
White as they had been, they began to glow rose and peach
And arrange themselves in ranks that nosed toward home, each
Becoming less like woven linen, more like lapping scales,
The lustrous bellies of fish, muscular, swollen, frail
Against the full weight of the atmosphere
But flexing and swimming. It appeared
They were going in my direction, up the canyon
Into the teeth of the cliffs to abandon
The appearance of going where they intended
Once they'd gathered all their distended
Substance into one rolling mass, tore, and poured
Fresh rains. Not every cloud attained its jagged shore,
However. Many fell apart before they made new weather,
Fell to wisps of wet and shroud again, apart together.
Ask one, ask any last scrap of fog misting the way,
Any passing shower before it has nothing left to say:
Why such a rush of verses, so late, without a prayer?
I was the salmon in the grizzly's jaws, gushing roe into the air.
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