The Sky's Secret

The sky cracked open - what secret does it hold?

The sky cracked open at dawn
and spilled its pockets of gold –
out tumbled a secret:
the clouds aren’t guardians at all,
they’re eavesdroppers, sly and smug,
hanging about like gossip.

In a street corner café
they’ve been listening.
They know all our names.
Watch them now – drifting low
over the church hall
where Mrs. Henderson adjusts her hat
and announces,
“Next week’s picnic will be lovely,”
while her eyes say what her mouth won’t:
that the new vicar’s sermons are dreadful
and his wife wears too much perfume.

The clouds puff with satisfaction,
storing each whispered complaint
like pressed flowers
in their billowy pages.
Then off they float,
heavy with secrets,
hovering above the Johnson twins
who’ve discovered a gap
in old Murphy’s fence
where the apple tree leans, tempting.

“He’ll never notice just two,”
says the smaller one, already reaching,
while the larger one keeps watch.
The clouds chuckle, remembering
when Murphy himself was eight
and pinching pears
from the rectory garden.

They drift higher now, catching thermals,
sailing over the young mother
pushing her pram down Elm Street,
humming lullabies to hide the tears
she won’t let fall –
bills unpaid,
husband working late again,
the baby who won’t sleep.

The clouds soften, floating lower,
knowing how heavy small burdens can grow
in the quiet hours before dawn.

See how they gather now,
a parliament of eavesdroppers
comparing notes like old women
trading stories over tea –
who loves whom in secret,
which marriages are paper-thin,
where children hide their fears
snuggling into wet pillows,
what dreams people whisper
to their bedroom ceilings
thinking no one hears,
no one sees.

But clouds hear everything.
They’ve been collecting confessions
since the first prayer was lifted skyward,
cataloguing our hopes and hungers,
our small betrayals
and our grand gestures.

Enjoyed this. A working prompt to be reviewed and commented upon by Wildwood Writer. A lovely challenge - easily accepted.