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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

Clouds

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