Clouds in the Sky

I am able to see clouds more often now in the sky during the day and as the sun sets now than I was before. Clouds also have a circle of life that in the end like many other animals around us, no matter their size helps our ecosystem. The water raises  into the air and its vapor forms a cloud, then the cloud rains and snows that drops back down to the ground. Much of the water serves as a source of energy for plants and animals. I was able to find "Life of a Cloud", a poem by Mark R. Slaughter that led me to believe that clouds also have a life cycle just like trees and animals, including us are made up of cells they are composed of H2O.

Warming thermals whisper as they rise,
To tell us they are soon to bring to view
In cooler air aloft before your eyes:
A gentle wisp to counterpoint the blue.

Powder puffs emerge to grant her grace
That further bloom as would for stately tree, and
Yield a sight that calls for our embrace:
Another cloud anew above the lea.

Cruising forth, she yearns for ageless life.
O how her hopes will soon be dashed in vain,
For up there in the cold she courts her strife,
To fade away as drops of closing rain.

Scant and lacy speak her living span,
And fair among us could be brought to mourn,
But she was there to populate her clan:
From fallen tears, new daughters will be born.

The poem describes their life and how it calls for attention I agreed with how the clouds make the sky a bit more interesting by contrasting its colors even though they are not vibrant colors, it adds that missing piece to the puzzle. "For up there in the cold she courts her strife, to fade away as drops of closing rain." This line in the poem caught my attention and added to the connection of how clouds too are alive, she, the cloud, disappears as rain drops from the sky. "From fallen tears, new daughters will be born." The last line of the poem made me think of reincarnation and how everything on earth serves a purpose to help other life on the earth. I wasn't sure why the poet saw clouds in a feminine way, it might be the way they seem delicate and beautiful in the sky that if he made them masculine it could of made the clouds in his poem seem less graceful.

One insect that came to my mind after I read the poem was the butterfly. Like the cloud it start its life with out much to show until it reaches the sky. The monarch butterfly for example migrates for miles lay eggs then it dies a new cycle of life begins. I saw an educational video about the monarch butterfly migration but I was not able to find it so I found this website that shows amazing photographs of their migration and hibernation. http://www.monarchbutterflyfund.org/node/148

Works Cited:
 

"The Monarch Butterfly's Annual Cycle." Monarch Butterfly Fund Conserving the Migration. N.p.,   n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

Slaughter, Mark R. "Life of a Cloud." PoemHunters.com. N.p., 22 Jan. 2010. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.