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I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all– from ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell

Happy Monday to all you dVerse poets out there! Kim here from Writing in North Norfolk bringing you the Q44, our Quadrille, when we take any meaning of one word and transform it into 44 poetic words. Today, I want you to write a poem of exactly 44 words (not counting your title), including the word cloud.

To inspire you I have included, with permission, an image of one of a group of paintings by a friend of mine, Norfolk artist, printer and community librarian Maria Pavledis, who you can find on http://mariapavledis.com/

clouds-3

How many times have you looked up and seen shapes in the clouds, chased a cloud or sheltered from a rainy mass of storm clouds? There are so many types of that visible mass of condensed watery vapour that floats in the sky: the highest clouds in the atmosphere are cirrocumulus, cirrus, and cirrostratus; mid-level clouds include altocumulus and altostratus; and the lowest clouds in the atmosphere are stratus, cumulus, and stratocumulus.

Cloud can be used to refer to a state of gloom, menace or worry. Winnie the Pooh pretended he was a little black rain cloud to get to some ‘hunny’. The verb ‘to cloud’ can be applied to any number of things that make the sky, water or our eyes dim. Clouds can be linked to our previous prompt word ‘shadow’. Mick Jagger sang ‘Hey, you, get off my cloud’ and Kate Bush made a wonderful video with Donald Sutherland for her song ‘Cloudbusting’:

Borrow the Joni Mitchell quote and/or the image (please remember to give credit), and let it float your cloud. Or you may want to write your own take on the Kate Bush song. Just be sure your 44-word poem contains some form of the word cloud.

Here’s how to Quadrille:

– Write a poem of exactly 44 words, including the word cloud.
– Put your poem on your blog and link back to this post.
– Link it up to our Mr. Linky.
– Visit other blogs. Enjoy some amazing poets. Comment. Come back later this week and write another one, and visit some more. Comment some more. Create as many poem clouds as you please. I’ll be reading all week.