1 <br /> <br />Dawn. First light tearing <br />at the rough tongues of the zinnias, <br />at the leaves of the just born. <br /> <br />Today it will rain. On the road <br />black cars are abandoned, but the clouds <br />ride above, their wisdom intact. <br /> <br />They are predictions. They never matter. <br />The jet fighters lift above the flat roofs, <br />black arrowheads trailing their future. <br /> <br />2 <br /> <br />When the night comes small fires go out. <br />Blood runs to the heart and finds it locked. <br /> <br />Morning is exhaustion, tranquilizers, gasoline, <br />the screaming of frozen bearings, <br />the failures ofwill, the TV talking to itself <br /> <br />The clouds go on eating oil, cigars, <br />housewives, sighing letters, <br />the breath of lies. In their great silent pockets <br />they carry off all our dead. <br /> <br />3 <br /> <br />The clouds collect until there's no sky. <br />A boat slips its moorings and drifts <br />toward the open sea, turning and turning. <br /> <br />The moon bends to the canal and bathes <br />her torn lips, and the earth goes on <br />giving off her angers and sighs <br /> <br />and who knows or cares except these <br />breathing the first rains, <br />the last rivers running over iron. <br /> <br />4 <br /> <br />You cut an apple in two pieces <br />and ate them both. In the rain <br />the door knocked and you dreamed it. <br />On bad roads the poor walked under cardboard boxes. <br /> <br />The houses are angry because they're watched. <br />A soldier wants to talk with God <br />but his mouth fills with lost tags. <br /> <br />The clouds have seen it all, in the dark <br />they pass over the graves of the forgotten <br />and they don't cry or whisper. <br /> <br />They should be punished every morning, <br />they should be bitten and boiled like spoons.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/clouds-2/
