Air Kissing on Mars

How to Look at Clouds

124 How to Look at Clouds Look up and watch them pass. You will see how meaning can form out of nothing. Often they go too fast: A ghost drains into a building, sheet of light is torn by an impatient breeze disappearing into the hilltops. Go to the beach during a storm. Look up and watch them gather, one explosive bruise after another, forcing themselves into the mouth of the sea. Walk through the park on a humid day. Look up watch them collect, bulky cotton cumulus, thunderheads guarding the troubled sky. 125 You may find today there are no clouds. You have looked up many times see nothing except endless blue warning you that nothing will change. I say clouds are where you find them. One might be stuck at the edge of a mountain range so far you can almost feel the chill from the air that surrounds it. Do not obsess about any one cloud. They are passing for your wonder. They will only form in that moment 126 you are ready to be convinced. Chances are there’s a cloud whispering your name into the ear of a sideways bird carrying a message to God. ...