Shortlisted for the 2002 Gerald Lampert Award

Cumulus

These are the carriers.
Their large, mild bodies make us think
of domesticity, of milk. Mammalian
they hold the rain in their bellies, a generous
temperament. They too are susceptible
to time, but more graceful than us.
Unafraid, they will let go
when they must. They breathe
more deeply and know something
of sadness. Their bodies are sympathetic.
Rain is what they know best and least.

Sue Sinclair’s poems speak from that precise place where our perception of the world and our capacity for language meet and embrace, where our sense of experience goes to get sharpened and refreshed. That experience might involve the inner lives of clouds, the flourishing and passing of a tulip, the evocative scent of wolf willow, or the intricate arts of Bach and Virginia Woolf. These poems are deft, musical, and quick in the moment, alive to the sensuous surface and the meditative depth, their antennae fully extended.