Ontology of Clouds

What there is
sitting with my son
between pear tree and fence
as storm clouds break overhead.

The pear tree
dangles glossy leaves
almost too lavish
for our desert town.

The fence
is a better fit of brown,
pale effacements of wood
and water stains.

My son
is that human extension of self
we know but never know
already bucking the connection.

But the clouds
are what we’re considering today,
the way they change
from scalloped metal to gauze.

I should explain
mechanics are what we understand,
descriptions of change,
never why of an ultimate reason:

the clouds roil and billow;
they twist and twine;
they unravel like thoughts
in the sky’s wordless blue.

I can hear
their silvery tentacles
disintegrating
in the wind.

The sound
cracks and hisses
like breaking glass,
tinkling rain.

And for a moment,
not holding anything,
we feel ourselves float too,
becoming part of them.