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Umbra

The blazing height of summer’s day
Now darkens to weird quasi-night—
Translucent dusk, half-cloaking gray,
Half-veiling darkness pierced by sight.

What shapeless cloud was blown astray
That dares eclipse the noonday light
Yet deigns not halt and wends its way,
Wandering on in aimless flight?

It floats where the jocose winds toss
Its lightness on their battling whims—
As I, too, wander at a loss.

The sun, though, spans the sky’s far rims
In measured arcs, destined to cross
Our paths and cast the shade that dims.

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Summer Clouds

Mountainous hulks, towering massifs
Swelling skyward ponderously
Dwarfing the earthbound world, impassive
To its hasty frivolity;

Botryoidal puffs shining white,
Tinged with faint opalescent hues
Glowing in the resplendent light
Of the wide heavens’ turquoise blues;

Wind-filled billowing sails unfurled,
Denizens of far, tropic climes—
The distant, blessed, fabled world
That wafts its warmth here in these times;

Heavy you bear your tumid form,
Engorged by sun and rain and earth;
Pregnant with what should be a storm,
Though yet you peal no pangs of birth.

You hold no storm that could belie
Your tropic languor. Satisfied
To soar in silence, you float by,
Majestic on the winds you ride.

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Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. He has published four books of poetry and his poems, essays, and fiction have appeared in various literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.

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16 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Marvelous cloud descriptors with imaginative imagery. Now there is one word, “botryoidal,” I never heard on a weather forecast, yet it is an apt description of clouds.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! “Botryoidal” is a word I first learned in describing crystal structures of minerals. I never anticipated using it in a poem, but I found the word perfectly suited as a descriptor. Strange how things turn out.

      Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    I like “Umbra” (a Petrarchan sonnet in tetrameters, no less!) and the way it plays with the interaction of bright light and dim shadow. The rhymes are perfect. I think there is a typo in line 12, where the apostrophe should be omitted from the word “span’s” (clearly meant to be a verb).

    “Summer Clouds” does something wonderful — the first three quatrains are composed of relative or dependent clauses, with no main verb, all built around three metaphoric synonyms for “clouds” Those synonyms are “hulks,” “puffs,” and “sails.” The fourth quatrain then hits the reader with a main verb — “you bear”, which is then supplemented by “you hold” in line 17 and “you float” in line 19.

    The ending words “you ride” do not constitute a main verb, since they are grammatically dependent on “the winds [that] you ride.” But “ride” puts a final emphasis on the swirling movement, the billowing , and the soaring that dominate this poem. This is highly professional craftsmanship.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! I count noticing craftsmanship as among the highest possible praise because it is so lacking in the “mainstream.” Poetry is, if nothing else, about craft. I hold your compliment dear.

      I will say the poem kind of formed itself into its structure — or I should say the rules of grammar forced it into the structure. I would liken it to following the grain of the wood in carpentry or of the stone in sculpture; the poet has to yield to what nature gives. Otherwise the art seems stilted and forced.

      (Thank you for noticing the typo, too. I notice I’ve been trigger-happy with apostrophes and constantly have to correct my “it’s” to “its.”)

      Reply
  3. Theresa Werba

    Adam, these are stunning poems. I enjoyed so much the beauty of the word choices in each of them– so tightly, yet gracefully constructed. I also had to look up “botryoidal”: “having the form of a bunch of grapes, from the Greek botryoeidēs, from botrys (bunch of grapes)”– and you utilized such an unusual word deftly within the context of a poem about summer clouds. Expertly crafted, much respect!!

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! I reiterate my comments on “botryoidal” and the construction of the poem from my previous two comments. I am honored to receive your respect.

      Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Worthy contributions, Adam, to the poetry of clouds. It’s a perennial topic, appealing to free verse writers as much as to formal poets, and thus your works are welcome as examples of artistry sustained during cloud-like wandering. This corresponds, of course, to cloud formation which may look irregular, but as you point out in “Summer Clouds,” depends on “sun and rain and earth.” Your diction in “Umbra” is light yet shadowy, befitting the criss-cross skirmish with the sun of the final stanza. In “Summer Clouds” the poetic stance and structure develop the thought toward the majesty you attribute to the cloud in the concluding direct address. Word choices (even “botryoidal”) are imagistic rather than meteorological, though the Latinate formation names have become more common now that cloud-watching guidebooks are popular.

    The rhyme scheme in 14-line “Umbra” is that of no standard sonnet pattern (Petrarchan/Italian, Ronsardian/French, Shakespearean/English, Spenserian/Scottish, or couplets). It takes up the simplest Sicilian abababab cdcdcd. The Sicilian does often use cdecde for the sestet, but here, I think, you want lesser complexity to maintain the plain light/shade contrast mentioned in your last lines. Sensitive choice!

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! I first noticed the difference between the summer and winter clouds in my own climate zone after traveling to the tropics, and have grown an affinity for the towering, majestic cumulus of hot weather. I am planning a companion piece on the much more severe winter clouds.

      Good catch on the sonnet form. I had originally planned quatrains straight through, but found the logical flow of the poem demanded sonnet form, so I reduced the quatrains to a sestet, resulting in a rhyme scheme I thought deliciously simple. I’m glad you agree.

      Reply
  5. Morrison Handley-Schachler

    These are two beautiful, poems, Adam, and they both repay a second reading. The sonnet captures the transient nature of the sky, while the second poem gives us four different aspects of clouds, heaviness, with the image of mountains; brightness, with the use of words evocative of crystals, “botryoidal”, opalescent” and “turquoise”; then speed of travel, with the reference to sailing; and finally the promise or threat, this time unfulfilled, of rain and thunder; before letting the clouds float on by, laving things unchanged.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! Good catch on the crystalline references. I confess their consistency was unintentional — but perhaps subconscious. (Who says the subconscious can’t play a role in formal poetry?) As for “Umbra,” I wanted the external transience to reflect an internal state.

      Reply
  6. Paulette Calasibetta

    Adam, both of your poems, invoke a congregation of clouds, floating through your expressive imagery; capturing fantasies before they float away.
    Beautiful!

    Reply
  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    As an avid sky watcher, I love these poems. “Umbra” puts me in mind of Wordsworth with its “wander at a loss” and the deft use of the words “floats” and “jocose”. It also reminds me of Yeats’ “Cloths of Heaven” poem with its “night and light and the half-light” – beautiful! I like the way “Umbra” and “Summer Clouds” are kin yet opposites – the first with its light, fleeting vocabulary as gentle as shadow, and the second with words that sound more stately and weighty – words that sent me to the dictionary – thank you! Discovering new words is always exciting for me. One drifts in uncertainty, half-dusk and wandering, while the other towers with opalescent majesty, at ease in its grandeur. These poems showcase your command of language, tone, imagery, meter, and form… and most of all those glorious skies above. Adam, thank you!

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Oh, wow, I sent the formidable SJB to the dictionary! There should be some award for that. All joking aside, I never expected to use a word I picked up from mineralogy in a poem — about clouds nonetheless. Your reference to Wordsworth is interesting. I never consciously imitated him, yet often hear his name mentioned in comparison to my poetry. Even in “Umbra” I did not consciously reference “Daffodils,” but I readily acknowledge the similarity. I keep going back and reading Wordsworth because of this, and do find much to enjoy. Thank you for the kind words.

      Reply
  8. Cynthia L Erlandson

    Amazing! I’ve heard that clouds are far from easy to paint; I think they must be difficult to describe in words, as well — but you have done a marvelous job of it! In line 9 of “Umbra”, you’ve even described the wind tossing the clouds by “tossing” the meter about a bit. Lovely!

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! As a matter of fact, I did find an apt description — one that I wanted to capture my exact impressions — elusive. I would say that’s why I devote three whole stanzas to description in “Summer Clouds;” I had to be precise, as with the colors a painter uses in depicting clouds.

      Reply

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