Clarence Caddell: ‘Smoke’

Smoke
(after Théophile Gautier)

See over there, beneath the trees
A scoliotic cottage squats.
The walls are out a few degrees,
Crumbling while the threshold rots.

Shutters hang open, slovenly;
And yet this hut when it grows cold
Breathes ribbons one can clearly see
Whose corkscrew motions each are told

Against the clouds; the soul inside
Sequestered, blue just like a bruise,
Wafts up the sky in its slow glide
To God, bearing the daily news.

Clarence Caddell