Cumulonimbus
I’m piled high,
ice mountains shifting within.
Outside there’s gentle light,
velum fraying into blue.
–
But reach into my heart and I am fierce as
a snow lioness
roaring above a churn of lead.
–
Laid like the first snows of winter,
drifting, flocculating, forming:
I evolve forever.
–
Nebulous on a hot afternoon
I forge a head of thunder
fed with a river of ice
scalding through sinking air.
–
I can eat an aircraft, tear it to pieces
with my updrafts, my downdrafts. My
wind shear.
–
I am more than a thousand bombs
Ready to rain down on you
all.
But what happens to me after the
gutspill.
–
After I’ve downloaded, drenched out.
When I’ve filled the present but have no future.
When I have been
phenomenal.
© Laura Parker 2023