Nimbostratus

Today you said, sometimes it snows in April,
and I remembered listening to that song,
the sadness I could not forget, the spill
of grief I didn’t understand so long
ago. Twenty-three years later snow
has decorated every bloom outside.
Beneath the nimbostratus, flowers show
their strength: they bend but do not break. Inside
I contemplate the view and think, the best
clichés survive because they’re true. But still,
I know that sorrow lingers, often dressed
in subterfuge, fooling all until
one day the snowflakes bury everything
in anguish like a funeral in spring.

I’m posting this today in honor of the crazy nor’easter that’s socking Pennsylvania today. Hang in there everyone.

This is one of my cloud sonnets, originally published in Cloud Studies — a sonnet sequence, by Whale Sound Audio Chapbooks. If you want to hear something that will knock your socks off, go to the original link and listen to Nic Sebastian read the poem.

If you’d like a paper copy, click here to buy one. It’s free to download as a .pdf, audio MP3, and various e-reader formats.

The awesome photo is thanks to Harald Edens. He graciously allowed me to use the photo in my chapbook.