The city paints my sky—

With the orange glow of mercury lights,

A slight pink tint is added to the night.

On the bottoms of gray-wool childhood clouds

I can see my aged youth.

Not so long ago I would watch them fly,

Ceaselessly changing shape to my liking.

They shone white on an endlessly deep blue

That extended forever in my mind.

That's all far away now

Lost in trees and hills and the endless rain

Which gave way fewer times than I recall.

The way I remember it, always blue,

Made for perfect weather

To dream of changeling clouds.

And I was the billy-goat of my woods,

Jumping up one hill just to leap back down

In sheer ecstasy of exploration.

I was filled with the light stuff of the sky,

And became as weightless.

A child playing in the woods lives in dreams,

And with the thinnest switch, captures the clouds.

Beside the bear den I told the sky, "Come,

Prove you're more than lakes."

But I moved long ago—

Brush and pine and the intimate forest

No longer saturate my summer days.

In the warmth of the icy desert sky

I can still change into the stuff of clouds

And become this city.