“Rising thermals gyre silently over sun-soaked fields. I watch them strike the frigid currents arcing down from the north. Splashes of ice crystals mark each impact point. These intermingle and shred, then regroup again until the grow smooth and white and pliant like kneaded dough. My mind soars up through the lace of nascent clouds, past deeper shoals of stratus, accelerating steadily as the molecules spread apart, until it reaches the deepest pools of sky, the place where mares' tails flick and trail.” NatureSkyCloudsPresence Author:Ann Batterson