The clouds couldn’t agree on what color to wear, or even on their floating altitude, and so they went their separate ways. Sort of. They were still loosely connected by drafts, breezes and shifting wavelengths.
The clouds wore varying soft hues, backlit by November’s setting sun. There were clouds in cream to deep blue. Some in shades of pink, yellow and gold. Amber and mauve were in the mix, and so were rose and olive. Gray clouds soared higher, as if a curtain pulled up to reveal the show below.
These weren’t the billowing, puffy clouds against the blue sky of a summer’s afternoon, or those I once looked down on in amazement from a jet plane, an endless row of pillows illuminated by a full moon.
No, these clouds had little body, like tie-dyed shirts softly swaying in the breeze. The horizon, however, was jagged, with leafless treetops and bare branches poking into the swirl of color. Crows added another contrast, that of motion.
Clouds swapped colors and partners as the sun, though out of my sight, was surely slithering further below the horizon. Then the sun gave up on this November day. But I watched until the clouds melted together in grayness, until the corn stubble faded into the neighboring alfalfa field, until the gathering darkness absorbed the branches.
I walked through the field. There was silence as dusk put away its colors, except for a whisper in the cool air, a whisper saying good night.