Nimbostratus

Nimbostratus, one formless bed of cloud cover, stretches across the treeline. The sun has no disc, and what little light there is this morning disperses over the valley to form a pale, uniform gray. As if the world had no sky, and when I look again in that stalled moment before rain, the trees have darkened, the cutout of each limb sharpening itself.

Silhouette is an eponym, the failed French minister of finance giving his surname over to any number of anecdotal etymologies. Like the featureless and inexpensive portrait itself, bearing line but no color, peasants wore black to deride the ruling class, show themselves as shadows.

Swallowed by shadow, streets and houses have only their materials against water. The living human form has its wits, bloated from anxiety or cut vicious by necessity.


The Winter Months

The winter months have already begun. Sleeping and waking through the revolutions of the earth, I move too with each revolve. In the dark, the rain swells in volume against the roof, the roofs of every house under this passing cloud, and gives off the feeling of safety to a human inside — Listen, I'm glad we're inside, listen to it.

Blackness is both a minimum and the absorption of nearly all light. With it, my hand is never an object about to tremble. If I turn, what part of my ease will vanish?