“He saw a tree in a backyard, its branches tortured among electric wires and clotheslines, its leaves dry and shriveled before they were fully out. Low in the sky, dark clouds heralded the storm.”

“I had innumerable visions at that time [c. 1903]; wherever I looked, Nature was alive, the sky, the clouds, on every stone and among the branches of the trees, everywhere my creatures stirred and lived their still or wild, lively lives, arousing my excitement and crying out to be painted.”

“As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,—
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”

“Struggling toward impassioned choirs,
Crying among the clouds, enraged
By gold antagonists in air —
I know my lazy, leaden twang
Is like the reason in a storm;
And yet it brings the storm to bear.
I twang it out and leave it there.”

“And see the peaceful trees extend
their myriad leaves in leisured dance—
they bear the weight of sky and cloud
upon the fountain of their veins.”

“Genius hath electric power
Which earth can never tame,
Bright suns may scorch and dark clouds lower,
Its flash is still the same.”

“The leaves were still on the trees, but were becoming dry, perched like birds ready to fly off.”

“Each day the storm clouds were opening like great purple flowers and pouring out their dark thunder. Each nightfall, the storm was laid down on their houses like a burden the day had carried.”

“Ask the world to reveal its quietude —
not the silence of machines when they are still,
but the true quiet by which birdsongs,
trees, bellworts, snails, clouds, storms
become what they are, and are nothing else.”

“Whenever a snowflake leaves the sky,
It turns and turns to say "Good-by!
Good-by, dear clouds, so cool and gray!"
Then lightly travels on its way.”