Of Clouds and Clocks Clouds are timeless wanderers; entranced, I watch them through my kitchen window -- roaming restlessly across the earth's rotating face. Behind me, I can hear a clock's relentless beat; each tock is based on its preceding tick and calculates the measured pace between what was and what is yet to come. But clouds have no such obligations; they can drift at will or frolic with the wind until they hurl themselves in wild abandonment upon the ground. I wash my dishes in their flow and they just billow down the drain, await their trip upstairs again. I wish that I could tie tick-tocks of time to cloud trails in the sky. Rain Words From a vast blue page, cloud sentences slide earthward, breaking apart as they tumble. On syllabic toes, rain words skitter across roads, roofs, leaves and upturned faces, absorbing the nuances of every dialect intent on finding the voice that will speak them back to the sky again. Morning Rain-Clock Tick tock, plip plop... clock and raindrops keeping time; silky syncopated beat marching through my head as I'm snug in bed, still half asleep. Tick tock, plippity plop... soft-shoe dance of clock and rain forms a brisk toe-tapping line. Dot-and-dashing through my brain, a morse-code message: 'rise and shine!' Tick tock, plip plop... rain-clock rhythm fades away, muffled by the rush of day. © Laryalee Fraser Index