Written Sunday, May 22, 2016 - Carbondale, Colorado

When a cloud evaporates, where does it go? A great huddled mass, swirling, spinning, drifting, and whirling; a marvelous spectacle in this grand world, here for only a finite time, hovering in the great blue ecstasy until its time is passed - its edges withering, shrinking, disappearing in a fire of passion, dancing and exalting as they catch their final light, disappearing from sight. Not gone, just transitioned - onto another phase, into the great mystic. It wonders not on its existence nor what lies beyond it. It does not fear its disintegration. It simply is. Now and forever - for if it exists at any time at all, then it exists for all of time.

Evaporated, yet still present - in the particles in the mountain air, the dew on the cottonwood trees, the sweat on a cold beer. Physically gone perhaps, yet now all the more prolific - vibrantly alive in the world that abounds, all around, glistening, glowing, gleaming with beings breathing in breadths as they look out wondering, pondering their own selves, their own presence. It existed once in all its glory - soaring, floating, casting its shadow, proving its actuality, perhaps inspiring wonderment far down below - a living human looking up to ponder living, seeing the cloud, and then no longer, evaporated into the great unknown.

There is life in all, breathing or not, for it is here, it is now, it is forever. A human lives not just his lifespan, but far beyond. He exists in the memories - his life and passing somehow impacting and shaping; his words - or simply just his being - echoing out into the voices and actions of those he knew, changing not only their lives, but the ones they interact with and so forth. The cloud shifts skywards, twisting towards the sun, and through it, we arise. Evaporation, but a transformation of phase.

- CJB