{"id":128,"date":"2010-11-19T18:40:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T23:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/?p=128"},"modified":"2010-11-19T18:40:16","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T23:40:16","slug":"lucretius-on-clouds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2010\/128\/poems\/lucretius-on-clouds\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucretius on Clouds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Derek Mahon<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(De Rerum Natura 6, 451-523)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Clouds take shape in the blue sky and gather<br \/>\nwhere flying bodies get tangled up together;<br \/>\ntiny clouds are borne along by breezes<br \/>\ntill the moment when a stronger current rises.<br \/>\nHills, for instance: the higher up the peak<br \/>\nthe more industriously they seem to smoke;<br \/>\nwind blows these wisps on to the mountain tops<br \/>\nwhile they are still vague, evanescent strips<br \/>\nand there, heaped up in greater quantity,<br \/>\nthey reveal themselves as a visible entity<br \/>\ntrailing from snowy summits into the ether,<br \/>\nthe empyrean spaces torn by wind and weather.<br \/>\nSteam rises from the sea, as becomes clear<br \/>\nwhen clothes on the shore absorb the salty air;<br \/>\nparticles rise from rivers and wet slopes<br \/>\nwhile the sky, weighing upon them, packs them tight<br \/>\nand weaves them closely like a linen sheet.<br \/>\nSome come from space, as I&#8217;ve explained before,<br \/>\ntheir number infinite, their source obscure,<br \/>\nand these can travel at the speed of light.<br \/>\nNo wonder the storm clouds, so fast and thick,<br \/>\ndarkening fields and sea, slide up so quick<br \/>\nsince from the blow-holes of the outer spheres,<br \/>\nas a our own windpipes. our glands and pores<br \/>\nthe elements come and go, mysterious and opaque,<br \/>\nthrough ducts and channels, roois and corridors<br \/>\nas if in a house of opening, closing doors.<br \/>\nAs for the rain clouds, how they come to grow<br \/>\nand fall as rain on the drinking earth below &#8211;<br \/>\na multitude of life-germs, water semen, floats<br \/>\nwith cloud stuff and secretions of all sorts,<br \/>\nboth swollen up, the fat clouds and whatever<br \/>\nsolution is in the clouds themselves, cloud-water,<br \/>\nas our own bodies grow with the serum, gism,<br \/>\nsweat, whatever fluid is in the organism;<br \/>\nalso they draw up brine with streaming sieves<br \/>\nwhen wind drives the clouds over the waves,<br \/>\nhoisting it from the surface in dripping fleeces<br \/>\n(same thing with bogs and other soggy places).<br \/>\nWhen all these water-sources come together<br \/>\nclouds discharge their excess moisture either<br \/>\nby ganging up in a bunch to crush each other<br \/>\ntill tears flow; or else, blown thin by winds<br \/>\nand sun-struck, they give off drizzling rains<br \/>\nas wax held to a brazier melts and runs.<br \/>\nSometimes the two things coincide, of course,<br \/>\nthe violent pushing and the rushing wind-force,<br \/>\nand then you get a cloudburst which persists<br \/>\nwith clouds upon clouds, tempests upon tempests<br \/>\npouring out of the heavens, soaking the smoky air<br \/>\nwhile the earth breathesbhack in bubbles everywhere.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Derek Mahon (De Rerum Natura 6, 451-523) Clouds take shape in the blue sky and gather where flying bodies get tangled up together; tiny clouds are borne along by breezes till the moment when a stronger current rises. Hills, for instance: the higher up the peak the more industriously they seem to smoke; wind blows <a href='http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2010\/128\/poems\/lucretius-on-clouds\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}