Cloud of My Childhood

Where did you go, cloud of my childhood?

Such a marvelous white mass you were

So much like a cotton ball or cotton candy

When the sky peaked through, blue, round edges wispy.

I recall lying upon the windswept grass,

Autumn leaves clattering over and around me

My eyes lost in the sanctuary of you, as I,

A child, wished to sail on and on upon your softness,

Undone to carelessness in my most carefree days,

To whatever places you roamed in majesty,

A slave to the whims of the wind, like the leaves,

Brown, yellow, red, skittering on the common ground.

Just as I am a slave to the wondrous memory of you,

Wondering now, at this future time, where are you.

Am I destined to share your fate somehow,

Sailing on and on forever in search of unknown destiny,

The only direction of my life left to common chance

And the sweet feel of the whimsy wind upon my back?

© 10/25/01