POETRY JAM - CLOUDS

“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down, and still somehow, It’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all.” – Joni Mitchell

Poetry Jam this week has set the theme of “clouds” as a springboard from which creative imaginations will leap into poetical expression. Here is my contribution:

The Cusp of Spring

On the cusp of Spring
With milky-brumy skies still wintry,
When evening falls early
Tinting the leaden clouds salmon-pink

When blue-violet hyacinths bloom,
Despite the bitter winds;
When rain falls and falls from grey-shrouded skies,
Making of the garden a forbidding place,
It is then that I want you most...

To clasp you close to my breast
As if you were a winter, hot-house rose,
Tall, slender, fragrant, snow-white;
To feel your ice-sharp thorns
Digging into my flesh, letting the ichor flow…

My blood to dye your white petals crimson,
Warming the wintry night
With the blood-heat’s freshly spilt libation
Hastening Spring’s arrival.