Astrologer of Clouds

They look at the night sky

sometimes through glass,

or maybe they have forgotten

about the actual sky and instead

read horoscopes and calculate birth charts.

I am an astrologer of clouds

noting the metaphors that float

overhead

on ordinary days

offering messages about my internal

reality and my most tangible life.

Homo sapiens lives under clouds

and that is his essential

and defining trait,

a man under a cloud that

speaks to him in metaphors.

It’s all projection, in your mind,

irrelevant, they say, not wanting to admit

to the obvious, the cloud overhead that

looks like something else.

Clouds are messages in the sky,

just what an astrologer wants.

But maybe clouds are too humble,

too close and ordinary,

lacking the mystery of a distant planet,

to be taken seriously as bearers of omens.

After all, at the birth of Christ it was a star

and not a cloud that signaled the place.

Maybe a cloud is not bright enough,

suggesting foggy awareness

rather than enlightenment.

Nevertheless, I’m an astrologer of clouds,

reading the heavens’ messages as they

teletype across the sky on a windy day.