Gospel of Clouds

On cloudy Sundays clouds are in my heart
as if my brother came, as if the rain
lingered among the mushrooms and the art
of freedom washed into the murder train
or rinsed the peat bog soldiers of the camp.¹
On cloudy Sundays clouds are with Joe Hill.
Last night I dreamt he was alive. The tramp
was mining clouds for thunder. And uphill
into the clouds I feel that time descends,
as if my mother came, as if the moon
were flowering between the thighs of friends
and gave us fire. On Sundays when the swan
of death circles my heart, the cloudy noon
rolls me gaping like dice, though I am gone. 

^{1. The peat bog soldiers were prisoners of war in the Börgerniir Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony. The song was composed in German by inmates and sung by thousands of inmates as they marched with their digging spades instead of rifles. It became a resistance song in many languages during World War II. In his resonant voice Paul Robeson famously sang it both in German and English.}

^{Wir sind die Moorsoldaten
und ziehen mit dem Spaten ins Moor.
Wir sind die Moorsoldaten
und ziehen mit dem Spaten ins Moor.}

^{We are the peat bog soldiers,
Marching with our spades to the moor.
We are the peat bog soldiers,
Marching with our spades to the moor.}