Summer clouds

With no apparent ferocity in their wildness,

shapes of white ash and beam

roll above and past the old house and barn,

which sag under them in rumpled pleats.

Bent peaks and gables finger the buoyant clouds

but seem too weak to hook, release

and catch them: armloads of damp laundry,

which through summer centuries stay daily fresh.

When I was a girl in a small town, one

summer night I dreamt that the moon came

close enough to touch. Clouds hover today,

almost brushing my head,

until something shakes them out.

Heavily they fall. For a while I stand.