Recently I was invited by my sister to join a group on a certain social media platform. “Cloud Club” is the name of the group. And my curiosity was piqued! Clouds are lovely things to observe, contemplate and enjoy – but I’d never thought there were enough other people who enjoy them to form an entire group on social media! So I’ve been taking, and sharing, the occasional cloud picture since then. Yesterday was we were preparing for the weekly gathering of the church, I had the old Canon EOS Rebel T1i in hand. It was fitted with the Helios 58mm f/2 “44” lens in an RAFCamera adapter. I was taking a few pictures of the tiny garden in front of our meeting place and looked up as well as down. And there to the east I saw the image below which brought to mind two things, “Cloud Club” and Henry Wordsworth’s poem from over 200 years ago. “I wandered lonely as a cloud…” is how it starts and these puffs of humidity high in the blue sky reminded me of that phrase from way back in “Language Arts” class with Mrs. Goade.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.