The clouds roll in
Usually soft fuzzy ones
That do no harm
As Thoughts push through them
Almost unabated.
But when the gray clouds come
Words get stuck in them
Names of old friends
My daughter’s phone number
864-430-7118
That suddenly returns in the middle of this poem.
And names of women I have loved fade
And only their image remains
And sometimes fear pops up
And must be cleared
For my dad’s middle name to return.
At times my wife forgets what happened
And somehow it makes me feel superior
that I recall what she forgot
Testimony that there are no clouds
And sometimes in the distance
I can see dark clouds
That smother out the life
And leave one wondering
If I will know
that they have come to stay.
The boundary of my being
Once called bags of water by make-believe aliens on Star Trek
grows weaker
Fading imperceptibly
Conceiving clouds as metaphors today
Perhaps completely lost tomorrow
the meaning of the collection of words
And perhaps even the symbols
Cluttering a white surface
No longer called a page
When the rain begins to fall.
Roe
October 2021
