Painting the Skies
As the sun returns slowly, bringing ever-longer days, the valley and mountainsides grow brighter.
The other morning the mountains were topped by low plumes of cloud. Their soft, frothy lights and shadows reminded me of work by the great landscape painter John Constable.
Of Clouds and Constable
The morning’s brushed the placid clouds that rise
Above the mountainsides with hues of blue
And white and gray. I watch the arching skies
As though old Constable had seen the view
And painted vast but gentle heavens where
They lift above the red-boned mesas’ height–
As though he’d been transported to an air
Still sweet and limpid in old winter’s bite
And, handed canvas, oil, paint and brush,
Had flung a vision of the clouds that range
No longer above fields of grass and rush,
But rather over rosy cliffs, which change
With each cloud shadow falling blue and gray.
They paint the mountains through the rising day.
This haiku also gives a glimpse of morning light.
Golden morning. As
earth turns slowly dayward, dawn
drips through the valley.
And finally, here is a haiku of night—a familiar scene, watching one’s shadow.
My double shadows
converge at my feet. Two lights,
two shadows of me.
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