Cloud (from Poetry Feb. 2010)

Kay Ryan

A blue stain

creeps across

the deep pile

of the evergreens.

From inside the

forest it seems

like an interior

matter, something

wholly to do

with trees, a color

passed from one

to another, a

requirement

to which they

submit unflinchingly

like soldiers or

brave people

getting older.

Then the sun

comes back and

it’s totally over.

Comment:

The cloud is in front of the sun. The speaker does not see the sun nor the cloud directly. “The deep pile of the evergreens:” this is darkness, the shapes only interrupted by a “stain” of blue. “Creeps across:” these dark beings, if you will, are static. No wonder the speaker refers to the color as one “passed.” The dark shapes have no color; time either is not or may have been.

Is the darkness nothing but shapes with blueness – some limited brightness – between them? The sunlight streams and the shapes are revealed. They – brave, whether old or young – are green, the color of hope. They are definitely grounded. Time is back, we recognize the momentary. The sky as a distinct entity has now been revealed. What was that clouded vision, exactly?