Stratus and nimbus clouds,
these are the peskiest water-wisps
in Mother Nature’s eye.

They play games. They joke around.
They quiver like tiny dancers.
They hover the land’s cusps
as fluffy little ice cubes
that even make the air shiver.

The most precocious ones
cover the sanctuary in the sky
like marshmallow blankets
welling up from the ground,
diffracting the morning light
without even the slightest sound,

revealing what was concealed behind them
— the brightest shimmers of rainbows in flight,
coupled with the harsher riptides of fog-dew
above the winds and the high-hanging nebulae
that reach out to the Sun in jest,

“The world does not always need to revolve around you.
Play with us, so that we can enjoy ourselves too!”

Chuckling in return, the Big Star took off his crown:

“Foolish clouds — don’t you know that I’m the best?
I will wait my turn; I’m the Master of Meteor Marbles.
Prepare yourself — you will get burned if you wobble!”

And so the Sun and the water-wisps played together
until the meteors and the marbles burst into flames
while everyone burst into tears of foolish laughter.

The Sun was right — he could not be beaten.

Everyone had fun — yes, even the Sun —
but all who participated had miscalculated
the tiniest piece of the equation:

Had this game become a distraction?
If so, how?

The second part of the Sun’s statement also proved true:

Those marbles were the other planets,
and all of them were burned to rubble too!

Don’t play games with the Sun, kids, or this will happen to you!

Published by Andrew Blitman

Andrew Blitman is a poet and artist who is also the webmaster of this blog. He is the published author of 13 books, including "Birthright 2012: A Voyage into the Heart and Soul of Israel" and the "Wild Writers" Series. He can be reached at this e-mail address: andrew.blitman@gmail.com View all posts by Andrew Blitman