Regan Huff
From a plane, the surface in all the contours
and the indistinct edges, the half-yellows
and off-whites and the thick, pasty, verging-on-blues
seems like the landing place
for lost humans, soft and accommodating
and at a remove from evil.
Walker Evans, tired perhaps
of the way Alfred Stieglitz threw his weight around, and also
his way of making the world
too beautiful, sighed
when looking at the photographs:
“Oh my God,” he said, “Clouds?”
No—not making the world
too beautiful, but editing the world
so that only some kinds of things can be looked at.
An island in the sea – the small solidity
can ripple the clouds like whalebones. The sentient being
on another planet
might deduce the island was there. The clouds
only pretend to be removed
from the earth, like the angels
who only pretend not to care what happens to us
but really
wake up each day craving the preposterous news.