appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2019

Max Heinegg
0:00
 
 

Clouds

I play my class a live version, comparing 1969
to today. They believe in the advertised mantle,
the powwow of stars. As the cycle goes, weather.
What do they think of Joni’s manner, confidence
in her own tuning, how she starts with the familiar
clouds, then illusions, and then love? Much of adulthood
is looking at the last lines first, dowsing the cracked
ground for strategy. They doze the talk from desks’
divans, don’t marvel at Joni’s ascent to cirrus, the surety
of one above, who falls how she wants to: in liquid
grace notes through the weight-bearing grey. How
the beautiful song and its singer, my mind stays
ageless. The challenge when yearlings
wonder at the gifted water, debating thirst.