Wondermentalist

Life is surprising. Isn’t it? I mean, we don’t need something out of the ordinary to happen to feel wonder. On a good day, obviously. Take clouds. If you can’t muster a sense of wonder at the sight of clouds, when can you?

Stephan Harding, in his book Animate Earth speaks of clouds as “the quiet captains of the sky”. I know this because he told me. I’m in with all the eco-boys, me. I haven’t read the book, although I have a copy. So I will. I will.

There is an organisation that exists to help expand our ability to savour the inherent contemplative joy of clouds. The Cloud Appreciation Society extends a warm welcome to everyone regardless of age, background or body-type. It costs £3 but you get a certificate, a badge and your own Cloud Appreciation Society membership number that you are entitled to write on your forehead at Cloud Appreciation gatherings.

As a member you are expected to talk up the value and virtue of clouds wherever possible, so I wrote a Cloud Appreciation poem. A version of it can be heard here. Which was handy – I only had a long-hand version, which I lost, and when someone recently asked for a copy I transcribed it from the Wonderful Radio podcast.

Clouds – What are you like?

You’re like:
Sky putty, atmospheric playdough,
Free range shaving foam, fish impersonators
Huff puff chuff chuff buffer zones
Ghost modernists, God’s pocket fluff
Angel plops
Ectoplasm with altitude, séance stuff
Weather workers, rain dispensers, farmer charmers
Extremists
Condensation culture
Inefficient strobe lighting
Non-dairy creme freche
Far-flung porridge
Bad mashed potatoes from 1970’s school dinners
Padding, cladding, blandy-floss
Wistful wisps of floaty fleece
Shamanic sheep shearings
Dreamy drizzly shapely shifters
High plains drifters
Thumbless hitchers
3-D thought bubbles
Congealed whispers
How now, sky cow?
You’ll be the rumination of me…

Clouds
Your proliferation
Is appreciated

(And that’s about the shape of it. What do you think…?)