Partly poetry with a chance of showers

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry

I dedicate this poem to a new follower of my blog, who is really a wonderful writer.  I always appreciate writers who can just make words dance.  We all need some reading that just makes you smile.  Her site is here.  You probably want to visit her site instead of reading this nerdy poem. 🙂

wavecloudsA boring scientist enters,
One who knows clouds,
Beyond wisps and shapes,
Beyond layers and levels,
Past the undulating waves
That repeat but don’t repeat
Like a tessellation
That could only come from the hand of Escher himself

And should we be content enough to look up
Or look down,
If that beauty is enough
To tickle our imagination
Inspire our thoughts
Keep us floating above it all?
But a cloud is not just a cloud,
Let me take you in to see what you haven’t seen

Now we are at the top,
I know that’s very boring, but you know
Gravity and all
I didn’t make up the rules
If you’re cold that’s good…that’s normal
What you see might also make you shiver,
But I promise to deliver,
We’ll start with ice, isn’t it nice,
I threw in a bit of rhyme to keep you interested
We’ll throw in another rime later
Microscopic particles of dust want to be ice
They mimic it and vapor is only too happy to appreciate the effort
And water droplets formed from the warmth below
Have no choice but to form tiny crystals
Some are columns long and elegant
Some are dendritic prisms
Whose branches grow
Making ever so intricate patterns
In no hurry to make their descent
They insist on skittering and fluttering their way down
Photons refract their way through this hexagonal maze,
And sometimes they even say “halo”….er…”hello”
But I don’t just want to stay here
Or things will get too cirrus…er…serious

Before I have to be a gentleman and give you my coat,
Let’s move down
If your finding it hard to move down,
That’s the wind in your face
Clouds would like you to believe gravity isn’t the boss
Here in the middle we have at all
Right here you’re being pushed up,
Not too far away you can be pushed down
But let’s get to the heart of the matter
Here there are solids, liquids, and gas
And you’re looking a little frosty
That would be the rime I was telling you about earlier
It’s so beautiful it makes your heart melt,
But you won’t until we get further down
This is where it really gets amazing
There are trillions of droplets in this cloud
They are thawing and freezing, growing and shrinking
Now let’s watch the chase, squint your eyes
Bigger drops and crystals catch smaller ones

                       Droplet Collision

Coalescing, accreting, sticking
Millions of collisions each second
And the wind that blows up
Telling pellets and drops alike
“You aren’t done, you’ve got more to do,
I’ll not let gravity take you yet”
Hail embryos get aggressive,
Water droplets show patience
Can you feel the electric potential grow?
Let’s charge downwards and get out of the snow.

It feels a bit more tropical here,
Near the bottom of the troposphere,
Raindrops are big and ready to fall,
Eager to get away from it all,
Bloated drops fall and scatter to pieces,
As the speed of the updraft slowly increases
From one big drop you get ten,
Just to make its way down the cloud again,
Old drops leave, new drops form,
A wondrous, evolving, dynamic storm,
Look at those two, their picnic set,
They’re both about to get terribly wet
I’m sure the weatherman told them their chances,
But you know how very nice romance is,
I hope this poem precipitates inspiration,
Beyond the nuts and bolts of rain formation,
Now when on the cloud don’t forget to stop,
And think about all those crystals and drops,
There’s a world above and a world below,
But often in the cloud there’s a better show.

31 thoughts on “Partly poetry with a chance of showers”

  1. What a delightful way to write about the weather! It wasn’t nerdy at all, it had me interested until the very end. Nerdy things do that for me too, but I wouldn’t classify this as nerdy, but more so intriguing. I loved it, it made me giggle a time or two. 🙂 Awesome poem, and I’ll definitely check out her blog!

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words. When you grow up good at math and science and are on the chess club, you tend to be a bit nervous about your creative writing. 🙂 I enjoy doing it though and that’s all I’m worried about. lol Enjoy your night or day, wherever you may be. 🙂

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      1. Oh I’m green at the gills, I’m no good at math! Science and chess, I like! You can see the enjoyment in your verbiage and it’s amazing! Why be nervous? You’re good at it, and if anyone says otherwise, show them the mathematical equation for the distance to the exit button! 😀

        It’s almost midnight here, so good night!

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        1. Haha…I like your suggestion! 🙂 I am gaining more confidence though. I like writing and am finding more and more that I want to express myself in more ways than just my normal philosophical ramblings. 🙂 Thank you again for your kind words!

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  2. Well, well, well – beyond well and into the realms of incredibly healthy in fact – a poem just for esme! Thank you Swarn, to inspire is a huge part of the Cloud and esme’s raison d’être, (can’t stand raisins mind you, so don’t put any in a cake for me should you be inclined to bake one), therefore I am honoured and pleased as the proverbial punch (Judy is now a judge) too for that matter, to have inspired your above poem, which has some cracking details about the Cloudy world and manages to be a romance along the way!

    “Can you feel the electric potential grow?” – Always!

    “Look at those two, their picnic set,
    They’re both about to get terribly wet
    I’m sure the weatherman told them their chances,
    But you know how very nice romance is,
    I hope this poem precipitates inspiration,
    Beyond the nuts and bolts of rain formation,
    Now when on the cloud don’t forget to stop,
    And think about all those crystals and drops,
    There’s a world above and a world below,
    But often in the cloud there’s a better show.” – (love this)

    “who is really a wonderful writer” – Wooooo-hooooo! By the Gods and dogs and frogs, thank you! (*gets over-excited and has to cartwheel across the Cloud and back to calm down*)
    Tis all such a magnificent effort to make just for little old esme, and I shall do a post saying so and send some of the strange, but well meaning and indeed brilliant followers I have your way by linkage and postage (flying monkey)..

    Thank you once again Swarn.

    – esme most joyous of smile – with teeth and everything (no tongues, no funny business) upon the Cloud

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    1. Thank you Esme for this wonderful response. I am so pleased that you liked it! Somebody with a cloud themed creative blog was too much to resist for this meteorologist. The beauty of clouds is what drew me to my profession and so I felt I had to try to relate that beauty to someone who clearly loved them too. 🙂

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  3. Pingback: Trumpet Solo of ‘Dedication’ Ensues. | Esme's Cloud

  4. That’s a fabulous effort, Swarn; liltingly rhythmical, amusing and informative at once – quite an accomplishment, and a real pleasure to read. I hope to see more of your poetry as time passes. As to Esme’s Cloud, then it’s already my favourite blog by some distance. You never know what you’re going to get there, but whatever it is, the author is always such a delightful and inspiring a presence, either above or below the line/Cloud/whatever. She does indeed ‘make words dance’ – like raindrops on a pavement. So it is that I walk between the raindrops, back to her door, every time – as the song says. 🙂

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    1. Thank you Hariod for your kind words. I am pleased that I was able to walk the fine line between creatively using words while maintaining scientific accuracy. lol It’s a difficult line to walk. 🙂 And I agree, she has a lot of positive energy and is able to express that energy in a beautiful way. Perhaps that is why I felt inspired to say thank you in a way that would be meaningful to her. With all the shit goes on in the world I think it’s a gifted individual who can dedicate their time to bring brightness to others. 🙂

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  5. Swarn, this was simply outstanding! TBH, I never got into poetry until I discovered poems written by scientists. One of my favorites being Mary Alexandra Agner. She tends to write in free verse, which is what you did here. I love free verse because it enables the reader (and writer) to focus more on content rather than structure.

    *thunderous applaud*

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    1. Haha…thank you!!! I like free verse too…although then sometimes I think it’s too easy and feel bad for not challenging myself to rhyme. lol It feels like I’m crafting more when I rhyme. Yet free verse does allow for more honest expression. As a result I did a bit of a mixture.

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        1. Agreed. It depends on my mood, sometimes i think an idea needs a bit more rhythm too, and rhyming creates a beat or a little music in my head. Free verse can have a rhythm, but a lot of time that rhythm is best felt when it is aurally communicated over reading. Either way, poetry is an important art and form of expression, I wish more people valued it.

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  6. exiledprospero

    Inspired by Swarn’s heartwhole poetry, I penned this–

    so much depends
    upon

    a heavy dark
    sky

    filled with rain
    water

    threatening the white
    city.

    Any resemblance to the William Carlos William poem affectionately known as ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ is purely coincidental. Lawsuits may be directed at the cloud.

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    1. Thank you for your kind words, and for following my blog. 🙂 I like your WordPress handle. Reminds me of a bank, or a stock broker. Which is good, because after taking a brief glance at your blog, it seems like something I should invest some more time into. 🙂 But today I promised myself that I would not let myself get distracted and catch up on some much needed sleep. 🙂

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  8. Science can be far from boring! Punctuated by the odd nod to the mystical – for nobody can know all things – I find it endlessly fascinating. Saw your poem on Esme’s. As a lifelong poet with the occasional Matrix-like scrolling of words illuminating my temporal lobes, I might offer with humble authority that you did a fine job of it, too! I look forward to more musings from you, poetic and otherwise. Aloha.

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