I caught a cloud

I caught a cloud one day.
I jumped that cloud and rode it far away.

Rode over the Atlantic, over Greenland
Where the air passed my skin like musical notes and where
Night awoke its deep purple stance.

I caught a cloud and rode it all the way to France.
I saw musicians from the Nile, Gypsy guitar players, and
Arab merchants.

I tasted duck carpaccio drizzled in olive oil, fresh goat cheese, eleven varieties of honey, ripened figs plucked right from the tree.

I soaked myself in the Moroccan tiled hamman, perspiration falling from my skin like rain.
I drank the mint tea to rain the water back inside of me.

I met a woman with crystal eyes--
she spoke my fortune on saturated breath.
I let out a sigh of relief. Now I can take my leave.

I said goodbye to the olive leaf, to my new found friends, said Au Revoir to the cicadas chirping on the sun-dried plain.

When I returned home everything remained
Quite unchanged
Still sitting in the normal place.

But the cloud and I shall never be the same.