Caught by Chance by Marjorie Moorhead

Pink in the sky! Lit by a rising sun.
Framed in bared branches’ tentacles,
reaching up to touch soft, cotton-candy-
colored fluffs.

I look for shapes. A shark, it seems;
floating up in the sky. The color of a shell’s interior;
rosy from morning’s light. The blue he swims through,
true, like Caribbean waters; turquoise and clear.

This cloud-shark patrols lofty territory, cruising
through pink seagrasses, kelp, and algae;
camouflaged and completely at home.
Only vulnerable to a breeze, which will take

the outer edges of this mist-shark’s shape along for a ride,
nudging form into some other creation, to loom,
hover, and glide. A changeable scene. Pink inhabitants
of a blue welkin sea, the reward of an upward glance.

Aquatic forms, caught by chance,
in a fleeting, cloud-ocean; gifted to us
down below,
on this beautiful, fluid morning.