The Vapors

Right as the afternoon
Gives way to evening, clouds
Rearrange their vapors
And the cabin's in sun.
Clouds! What weird entities.
Gargantuan beings

That aren't beings at all,
The world's best exemplars
Of transitoriness,
Potent irrelevance,
Boats that are their cargo,
Precious, cursed, weird structures.

Shall we make metaphors
For clouds to bear along?
Ephemerality
Instantiated, held
Up to evening sun,
Most nothing of somethings?

The clouds above this roof
Regather, not for poems,
Poets, philosophers,
Nor for the ironists
Of neighbors complaining
About weather, an art.

No, they just regather,
And once again block sun
For no reason at all.
Can we say they're the truth?
One, they're real, and no doubt.
Clouds are not gods or myths.

Two, they're not like the words
We use to describe them.
Three, they emerge and go.
Four, they have no borders
Worth defense, but they're dense
And my cabin grows dark.