THE LANGUAGE OF CLOUDS

I am the landscape.

I am the trees.

I am the birds and the air they wing their way through.

I am every beast with hoof, fin or foot.

I am grass and stones and dust and dirt.

I am humans with their mixed-up priorities, asleep in dreams of a self that never was.

I am the alpha and omega--the beginning and end of all things.

I am nature in all of her aspects, terrible and cruel and wise and merciful, in a word--transcendent.

Whether you call this realization “mystical” or “ecological” doesn’t matter a bit.

I am that gilded cloud over there, looking regal, backlit by the sun--here for a moment and then gone.