-- THE EVER-CHANGING SKY --

By John Herlihy

The sky seems to be full of suggestions,

An awning pulled open at the bid of day.

We never ask the important questions,

Of whence her beauty, come what may.

First, you have the black plate of night,

Sprinkled with all those iridescent stars.

So black, everything seems out of sight,

That frantic twinkling all captured in jars.

Who doesn’t know there is no true sky,

Just an endless void of deep outer space.

We look up at night and just wonder why,

The yawning heavens an awesome place.

Then comes that faint whisper of morn’,

As if the light were playing peek-a-boo.

A bright sky arriving with a new day born,

Splashed by waters of aquamarine blue.

A shining plate of glass about to break,

As livid and brittle as a frozen Arctic sea.

God did think of such a wonder to make,

Always overhead, always watching over me.

The thin whisper clouds intertwine as lace,

Never young, never old, always true to tell.

Delicate, intricate, giving the sky a face,

Always ready to cast down its magic spell.

Then comes a strong wind from the North,

To bring with it the scourge of Arctic chill.

As clouds gather, like ships setting forth,

Clogging the light on the far horizon at will.

Soon the sky churns into a visage of storm,

A billowing blackness of a hot boiling stew.

So fierce we do question the day earth born,

Terror as striking as anything we ever knew.

Our hearts settle in the storm’s aftermath,

Streams of light pierce clouds as laser rays.

The landscape now fresh after its daily bath,

Forever fresh, forever new, until end of days.

The day finally closes down with glowing blush,

Blue sky now awash with puff clouds and light.

Say what you will, but sunsets always bring hush,

The dying sky full of livid colors seen at twilight.

As I said, the sky is full of awesome suggestions,

Always changing, never the same, black or blue.

Raising in our hearts all those perennial questions,

Of all that we wish to know, and all that we knew.

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(c) John Herlihy 8 February 2019