Early post? And BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! And a plug.

Why yes, this is an early post. It is because I am in the Amsterdam airport right now. I have a layover and do not board for another hour, so I decided to kill time like this. I was watching the clouds on the airplane and saw how they changed when we went through them. That gave inspiration to this poem, which is relatively long.

And the big announcement, as sort of promised/alluded to: I am relaunching The Digre Poem Project. For those of you who are not familiar with it, I wrote a ten-line poem a day for fifty days in the winter of 2007/ 2008. I had been inspired by photographer Ray Brandenburg's similar endeavor and did it myself. This project had a huge impact on my life and on my poetry, and I then proceeded to write and talk about it in every single college interview I attended. Now, three and a half years later, I want to do it again while studying in Norway. I'm starting it next Monday the 27th, so mark it on your calendars!

Finally, shameless plug: check out my other blog while I'm in Norway and Britain! www.fiskandchips.blogspot.com. I suggest you do, especially if you like mundane travel details and culinary accounts.

This is the most I've ever written in an entry.

FINALLY FINALLY, the poem.


Who envies a soul
Whose being shifts
So effortlessly? What blend
Of will and outer lifts
Create a cloud? In the end
Do they really have control?

They change their shape
Because they cannot
Control. Blame the wind,
Blame the whole lot;
Look at the landscape
And imagine it not pinned

By the breeze. Imagine it wild,
Bitter, full of anguish,
Freedom for freedom’s sake
Tossing its head in a wish
Of something crucial to take
From the wind. And not mild:

To reach for the position
The wind holds. The power
It exerts could be a cloud’s.
But to dissipate with a shower,
Or be influenced by the mission
Of the tornado crowds,

Cannot be in the heart of the gust.
Oh, it’s not your power to exert!
If only you clouds knew your place.
Oppression surely must hurt,
Rolling, clinging onto space,
But who else can we trust?

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre