A Cloud of Unknowing

Cumulus clouds are the spiritual
cousins of elephants which at the beginning
of time were white and had wings to fly
could change their shape at will
and had the power to bring rain

Eighty elephants weigh
as much as water droplets in a cumulus
which, accumulated, form a cumulonimbus.
Forty thousand thunderstorms
occur around the world each day.

The critical conditions are a ready supply
of moist hot air, tropospheric winds around
the cumulonimbus need to increase
with height to encourage it to slant forwards
and the atmosphere needs to be unstable