Cloud- by Sandra Cisneros (A Poem & A Picture)

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.”—Thich Nhat Hanh

Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and

murmuring like a mouth. You were the shadow of a cloud

crossing over a field of tulips. You were the tears of a

man who cried into a plaid handkerchief. You were a sky

without a hat. Your heart puffed and flowered like sheets

drying on a line.

And when you were a tree, you listened to trees and the tree

things trees told you. You were the wind in the wheels of a

red bicycle. You were the spidery Maria tattooed on the

hairless arm of a boy in downtown Houston. You were the

rain rolling off the waxy leaves of a magnolia tree. A lock

of straw-colored hair wedged between the mottled pages of a