Cool Clouds: Building a Community

It’s another cloudy day, but I’m not complaining. Photos like this one are making an impact. People have started noticing my weekly chronicling of the sky outside my office window, and they ‘ve kept it in mind as they go about their business.

A few weeks ago, fellow children’s author Leslie Bulion came across the poem “Weatherman.” She knew I’d appreciate it and sent it may way:

My father was a skywatcher,
cloud-noter, wind-gauger,

trained since birth
to check the weather first thing
and last. In those last

dim years when all else had left
mind and memory, he’d still stare
keenly out the car window

as I drove him to neurologist
or podiatrist, and exclaim with joy and

satisfaction: Look at those clouds!
And I knew right then that watching the sky

was a good way to conduct a life--
that reading the outlines of clouds,

lifting a finger to the pulse of
breeze coming your way,

is what can hold you close,
clasp you tight to the thrum.

                                  --Wendy Ingersoll

Thanks, Leslie. What other special treats have people be sending me? Stay tuned to find out.