Cloud Folk

What is rot to the great beast
Robed in furs, armed to the teeth,

But weak in the face of flecks
That are too small and too quick

For it to see, crush, or duck
From in time? That’s the whole world

For most of lives, from one age
To the next, from when great beasts

All had scales and none had fur
To when the thin-skinned made blades

Fine for a slice from a hide,
But still too crude to catch lives

Small as most lives are, have been.
The fey of the earth that turn

All flesh left to spores and greens
Have their worth, their reign of dirt

And pale soils snowed in grey drifts,
Thick on the floors of the seas.

I wish there were cloud folk, too,
That great beasts could look up to,

And when these short, hard, storm rains
Pin the roof and sting my hands,

I like to think of the day
Rained wings send me on my way.