Mares Tails

Yesterday during my art class at the senior center one of my fellow students came running in all excited. “Everybody come outside. You have to see the mares’ tails. They are just amazing!” I had no idea what she was talking about, but her excitement made me go outside and look. Mares’ tails are high, thin wispy clouds that fan across the sky and are said to resemble the tails of horses, hence, mares’ tails. The proper name for them is cirrus clouds. The sky was beautiful with all those feathery clouds stretching long fingers across the clear blue sky. My classmates and I stood there pointing out the different cloud formations and discussing how we could paint them. As we stood there the crowd around us began to grow. Others had seen us hurry outside and gaze upwards. More people gathered and stared upward with us. “What are you looking at? What’s up there?” They all seemed a bit disappointed that we were just looking at the beautiful sky. I guess they expected our enthusiasm was from something a bit more exciting. I wonder what they expected.

Would you have come outside and looked up to see what had so attracted a group of senior citizens?