The Weight of Clouds

By Peter Bowden

 


The clouds came low that afternoon, not angry exactly, but heavy with some old thought the sky could no longer carry alone. She stood in the garden between the rows of tomatoes and marigolds, her bare feet pressed into the dark earth still warm from morning sun, and watched them gather. They looked softer than stones, or the quilts folded in cedar chests, yet she felt certain they weighed more than anything she had ever known. Maybe more than the wheelbarrow her father pushed. Perhaps more than the sacks of soil stacked by the shed. Heavier even than sadness, though she did not yet have the right measurements for that. 

The beans climbed their poles in silence. Bees moved lazily from bloom to bloom as though unconcerned with what hung overhead. But she kept thinking the clouds must grow tired from carrying all that grayness. She imagined them straining above the town, swollen with rain and unspoken things, trying not to let go too soon. The garden seemed to understand. The leaves turned their pale undersides upward. The roses bowed slightly as if preparing themselves. Even the air changed weight, pressing softly against her shoulders until she carried it too.

Then the first drop came, cool against her arm, and another against her cheek like the touch of a careful hand. She looked upward and felt the sky finally surrendering its burden. The rain fell steadily now, tapping leaves, darkening soil, filling the garden with the smell of green things waking deeper into themselves. She stood in the middle of it and laughed quietly, because she understood something then that no one had taught her: heavy things do not stay held forever. Even clouds must eventually break open and become gentle again.


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