“Clouds”

“But spectacular sights appeared in the sky. At one spot, they saw sagging pouches of mammatus clouds which changed, as the bus advanced: first looking like shadowed snowballs, then microscopic cell structures, then x-rayed teeth, and finally colossal kernels of corn picked out in sepia and soft-lit ivory. The sun began its descent. Further down the road, Rip pointed to the northwest where a towering anvil-shaped cumulonimbus cloud rose black against a deep-king’s-blue sky, like a colossal bison walking slowly across the heavens. This cloud had likely spawned the mammatus they had seen earlier. Far into the distance behind the bison stretched an ocean of graded orange and yellow: butterscotch, persimmon, and gamboge near the horizon, edging into corn, lemon, and sunshine-yellow higher up. From this bright water sprouted, here and there, small, hilly islands. In the sky directly west of the boys extended a vast sea of enamel blue whose shores comprised vermilion and watermelon-hued cotton wisps. On the opposite side of this sea, the disjointed vertebrae of an archipelago, tinted geranium-orange and cherry bloom, lay scattered in waters of tender baby blue.”