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. 🙂

A 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

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.