When clouds are seen from above, being pushed sideways by strong winds, they resemble rising dust or a plume of smoke.

This beautiful couplet paints a vivid picture of clouds from a unique perspective. Imagine you're high up, perhaps on a mountain or in an airplane, looking down at the clouds. When strong winds push these clouds sideways, they don't look like fluffy white masses anymore. Instead, they transform. The poet says they can appear like dust being stirred up and flying through the air, or even like a dense plume of smoke rising. It’s a wonderful observation, highlighting how our view changes the very nature of what we see, turning familiar clouds into something entirely different and surprising.