Stratus
The clouds were not just low, they drifted,
playing not only hide and seek with planes, they softened everything.
Stole the feathers from the blackbirds; their songs too.
You will never see such weather again.
Perhaps last week you strode alone
wet legged through the long grass of home, binoculars
ready. I can see you relishing the breath of nature regardless
of any such a thing as cloud.
Perhaps this is the same mist you saw that day, that
left you in happily isolation. Insubstantial but
even then a solid white and grey creature, snaking, tracking,
travelling to that moment of my own tin can banality. Calling
to mind happier days, hinting at cirro, of wispy baby hair
chasing blue. Of running across yellow fields,
your swinging me onto your shoulders and pointing
out brown skippers, red admirals, purple emperors;
of my sister and I lying in the meadow
spinning untamed cumuli into futures.
Jennie E. Owen’s writing has won competitions and has been widely published online, in literary journals and anthologies. She is a Lecturer of Creative Writing and lives in Mawdesley, Lancashire with her husband and three children.