Cloud Computing Poem by Anne Lee Tzu Pheng

for Stephen S G Lee
First, the found formation:
the novelty of the concept
of cloud computing
has been a subject of dispute
as some have pointed out, much
of the technology and infrastructure
had already been in place
long before the term itself
existed

in other words, the cloud
has been with us all a long
time ago, but it got clouded up
and reformed in the global
cloud architecture
and now emerges new
and strange

it is hard to find one's way
in this packed void of
the invisible cloud of clouds
though it is virtually possible
with the best cloud engineering
to apply a myriad disciplines to perfect
the community cloud for cloud clients
who can't choose between the private and
the public cloud, or the latest
hybrid cloud

this Intercloud provides a means
to navigate through
the mass of cloud platforms
where perhaps we'll find hidden
the cloud storage of old acquaintances:

nebulous cirrus / stratus / cumulus,
cirrostratus: fairweathering
stratocumulus: dallying promises
cumulonimbus: coming on heavy
yet all as ephemeral and ethereal
phantasms of the troposphere
as to defy any form of
cloud computing

and, surely it may be said
in this immemorial
network of networks,
we seem to be in
Nephelokokkygia:
cloud-cuckoo-land
all over again
for those of us with
our heads in the clouds of a
new and complex, perplexing
Cloud of Unknowing