6.01.2014

the drama of the shifting clouds
...Thoreau's Journal: 01-Jun-1852

Evening.—To the Lee place, the moon about full.

The sounds I hear by the bridge: the midsummer frog (I think it is not the toad), the nighthawk, crickets, the peetweet (it is early), the hum of dor-bugs, and the whip-poor-will. The boys are coming home from fishing, for the river is down at last. The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights, and never-failing entertainment of nightly travelers. You can never foretell the fate of the moon,—whether she will prevail over or be obscured by the clouds half an hour hence. The traveler’s sympathy with the moon makes the drama of the shifting clouds interesting. The fate of the moon will disappoint all expectations. Her own light creates the shadows in the coming (advancing) clouds, and exaggerates her destiny. I do not perceive much warmth in the rocks.

2 comments:

michael jameson said...

we all share clouds!,like the whether and complaining about the government, we all have them in common!,the hours spent looking up at them dreaming or anticipating the energy of a storm,they keep us alive it is their water that gives us life and yet we still complain about them when they block the sun! and they give us our food, i wonder what the clouds think of us?. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

Yes we have too much care about them but I don't think they care about us a bit. They come and go from and to nothing. They are much more sophisticated than we are.