i’m writing a song called
‘a cloud hangs over us’
which almost sounds like
‘stratocumulus’
which, as it happens,
comes from the Latin words
stratus – or flattened layer.
and cumulus – as in mass or heap.
i want to somehow keep
it light. i want to write a fight song,
not a song to make us weep.
oh flattened heap, my people, listen:
stratus also means ‘spread out’
and we are the wide horizon
we are the long road, climbing
we are the beautiful masses
rising, rising.

photo and poem by katherine ferrier ©2017