Of Clouds

 

Clouds Within

The clouds, rolling in on that solemn day,
As if to deliver the dire news,
Approached my gray zenith to mourn with me ...
And rained.

And I remembered your most godly ways,
And then loathed myself for our little time;
And as the dreadful clouds within grew dark ...
I wept.

 

-jwm

 

 

 

Dedicated to my grandmother ... miss you.

A Lowly Rose

The clouds are dear, or so to most,
Who stroll the vaulted blue like ghosts …
Drifting free and free of woes-
So calm their gentle, placid host!

But I prefer the lowly rose,
Whose fragrance woos the willing nose …
Tethered there, yet beauty clad,
And much more lovely, I propose.

-jwm

Of the Painting: 

 The painting was done by my absolute favorite artist, John William Waterhouse. He was a part of the later period of the pre-Raphaelites, and the painting is called, My Sweet Rose (or, The Soul of a Rose). This is my daughter's favorite painting of his- or at least it was a long time ago.

My Lovely Jean

I smell the cold in the rain.
It touches me through the screen
And weeps for my gain:
Its nemesis, my lovely Jean.

I found her beauty in the blue
Beyond the loamy medium,
Far beyond the multi-hue,
And further still from all this tedium.
Through it she pulled me to her heart,
And all that I called ‘I’ repined-
Since now its world was torn apart
By Love that pulled me from its bind.

Now pain sleeps in the silhouettes-
In clouded blues above and bold-
And thunders down on Jean its threats,
While shedding tears that smell of cold.

-jwm



Of the Poem:

The idea was to represent redemptive love mythologically. The story is of a person pulled into the heart of the highest heavens and, leaving the viler aspects of nature behind in the clouds, is made one with heavenly Love.

The darker aspect of the poem is Pain (in many ways one's former love), of which the raining sky and those thunderclouds represent.


I chose only to follow a rhyme scheme (there's no intentional meter).

Italian Quatrain

I see the rolling thunderous approach
As loam emanates from cemented ground;
I see synapsing clouds devoid of sound,
And am jubilantly without reproach.

-jwm

Of the Poem:

Friends and I hiked Mount Sherman last June. The night prior to the hike, when we arrived at the hotel, there on the horizon was a cloud that resembled what I might imagine the aftermath of a nuclear blast to be. It was beautiful (picture above). The following week while it rained I was studying Epictetus (a Stoic philosopher), and read:

"Remember God. Invoke him for your aid and protector, as sailors do Castor and Pollux, in a storm. For what storm is greater than that which arises from these perilous semblances, contending to overturn our reason? Indeed, what is the storm itself, but a semblance? For do but take away the fear of death, and let there be as many thunders and lightnings as you please, you will find that to the reason all is serenity and calm..."

The idea for, and imagery of, the above quatrain emerged from these two events. It's because Epictetus was a Roman citizen that I decided to render this quatrain Italian. I know it's just a stanza, but it's riddled with the perfect amount of Stoic symbolism.