A Low Bank of Cloud Poem by Ed Roberson

But for a low bank of cloud,
clear morning, empty sky.



The bright band of light beneath the cloud's gray

I thought at first was open distance, but it's ice



that by extension raised the lake above the lip of blue lake

and spilled it farther out than that horizon



along the sky

and floods the clouds.





Seeing the distant level further

unfurl into the sky says not to trust



blue line as terminus

when a meniscus of ice



can ride up that wall of the skyline,

a measure of illusion how close



the eye can be to filled

with seeing, to widen instead the tube of that measure





of sight we are given. There is the larger

lake the wider look we open



eyes to see. That glance of the lip

put in a bigger cylinder falls away,



but how much deeper the spring

to fill the cup.



As if the surface we are seeing

drops the more seeing is added,





while we feel the stories well as our height

from which to see. And watch the dawns coming.



…I seem to be emptying

of time the more time I put in,



and see like a man with weathered eyes enough

to face to face up to the sight's field expanded



to insight. To the dark the lake can turn

and curl up like a map for poems to have





these likenesses to graph,

then come un-scrolled from semblance back



to just this lake. Water

cities are led to layout



beside. But never in stillness;

always the restoration to change,



from ice, from cloud, turning to clear

liquid—as is most of our body





water— thinned sheet, layer

that if written on or with, a bearing



a name chiseled on water

disappears.