Jonathan K Rice

Whatever Sky You Can Imagine

Skies in a drawer

of photographs.

Instamatic 

square skies. 

Mostly clear skies

over calm seas

and beaches

in Florida.

Stormy skies

over inlets, 

bays and canals.

Summer skies 

over swamps.

Overcast 

Okeechobee skies. 

Cape Canaveral 

window to 

the stars skies.

Winter grey

Appalachian skies.

Tennessee,

Virginia, 

Carolina skies 

taken through

windshields,

side windows,

rear windows,

sun roofs,

every mountain,

valley, tree line

starting to look 

the same in all 

these monotonous

squares. Yet every

sky is different

some with a wisp 

of cloud, smoke

from fire or factory,

bird or plane suspended

in a corner. 

Steeple, transmitter

or tower 

juxtaposed against

a canopy of hardwoods

or pines. 

A handful of urban skies.

Grime and noise rising, 

wafting through the roar

from trains and airports.

Upstate New York skies.

Niagara Falls and

Great Lakes roiling skies.

Mississippi Delta skies. 

Desert heat ascending 

from sand in all direction

skies. Cool mountain peaks

in the distance skies.

All these photos 

can make their own sky

confusing everyone 

and everything beneath it,

make me want 

to dream

my own sky,

a different earth, 

a firmament of my own.