Kay Ryan’s cloud, reverse alchemy: a wonderful example of the intellectualization of contemporary poetry, by Kay Ryan, our 16th poet laureate. Takes the gold of natural beauty and transforms it into the lead of “creative writing”. Also some priceless enjambment, but that's another story.

Cloud

A blue stain
creeps across
the deep pile
of the evergreens.
From inside the
forest it seems
like an interior
matter, something
wholly to do
with trees, a color
passed from one
to another, a
requirement
to which they
submit unflinchingly
like soldiers or
brave people
getting older.
Then the sun
comes back and
it’s totally over.

Kay Ryan, Poetry, February 2010