Thunderhead Migration

Description

The first sign of its approach was rain falling from a clear patch of sky. Then the treetops appeared above the clouds, traveling together against the wind. In the migration imagined here, valley residents know to watch the mountain passes when that wandering forest returns. Its arrival brings waterfalls overhead and thunder close enough to rattle the crockery.
Thunderhead Migration reveals an immense whale whose body takes shape in folded storm clouds. Its broad head fills the upper right, with billowing contours defining the mouth and deeply ridged throat. A brilliant blue eye shines beneath a heavy sweep of vapor, giving this vast weather formation an unmistakably watchful presence. Lightning branches across its face and flippers, illuminating the gray with electric blue and pale gold.
Along its back, a richly wooded landscape rises through drifting mist. Broad-canopied trees, slender conifers, mossy rock, and patches of small blue flowers form an elevated wilderness. The solidity of those rooted trees makes the creature’s flight especially arresting: an entire forest occupies terrain that is passing through the sky.
Long waterfalls stream from its outstretched fins and lower contours. Their white curtains descend toward the cloud layers below, connecting the airborne creature to the distant land. Far beneath, mountain ridges surround a winding river and green valley. Breaks along the horizon admit warm sunlight, revealing the extraordinary distance between the whale and the landscape under its course.
In the imagined village, someone sets a basin beneath the eaves to collect the first shower. By the time it fills, the traveling forest has crossed the pass. Thunder follows, and the waterfall’s shadow slips from one hillside to the next.