Monsoon Poem

***

Before the Storm

The scattered leaves
shook with life
and flung the air
with swirls of dust;

swept the trees
and swayed their heads,
brushed the skies
with thick grey clouds;

layer on layer
menacing black,
moving in waves
and waves to attack;

an army rushing,
horde upon horde,
whirling and swirling
the dust on the road;

leaping and tearing,
snapping dry branches,
banging the windows
and doors;

with a lull...

the wind
holds
its breath
for the storm.

© Tan Pratonix

I thought I should add some text here, so that you could appreciate my poem 'Before the Storm' in the context of 'cloud poetry' and 'cloud appreciation' across the world. Some of the great cloud poems are:

1. The Cloud Messenger, a famous Sanskrit poem, written by the great classical Indian poet, Kalidasa, around the 5th century A.D. One of the oldest and best translations of this poem and of the writings of Kalidasa is by Arthur W. Ryder. There are other translations of Kalidasa's works available on the Internet, but I don't think anyone can match Ryder for his brilliance.

2. Some of the English poets have written famous poems on clouds, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose poem, The Cloud, is studied by students of English Literature at the college level in most countries of the British Commonwealth in Asia.

3. William Wordsworth's poem, Daffodils, is learnt by heart by lovers of poetry even from a very young age.It begins: 'I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills...'

4. I believe there is some excellent cloud poetry by the Chinese and South-East Asian poets, but we need to get our hands on some good translations of their works.

5. The website www.Helium.com has 20 poems describing dark clouds. Some of them are pretty good.

6. There is also a Cloud Appreciation Society where cloud paintings and cloud poetry are put up for your edification. The site is www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

©Tan Pratonix