On the last day of clouds, or at least
that’s what they say, the last day
of this muted masterpiece, I walk
along the edge of the lake at Brady’s Run.
The air is moist and right on the edge
of freezing, so that I am wide awake
and everything is intense and clear,
the colors, the whispers of the lake’s ripples,
of their soft lapping on the shore, the sound
washing between these hills, the high wind in
the cottony clouds, the faint tapping
of the trees’ naked branches. Beyond that,
no sound. Only this symphony of the lake,
and the hills, and the light, and the trees,
On this, the last day, for now, of clouds.