My daughter looks at clouds and sees animals. I look at this one and see my father. There's a particular way cumulus builds up on a summer afternoon — shoulders first, then height, then that slow swagger across the sky like a man who's fixed everything that needed fixing and is coming in for supper. This bank of cloud has exactly that walk. Bright white where the sun strikes it, blue-shadowed in the creases, towering but somehow friendly, the way a tall person can be friendly by bending down. When I was small he'd carry me on his shoulders through county fairs and I'd be higher than everyone, close enough to the heat to feel it, and this cloud is what that felt like from below. Big, warm, between me and anything bad. My daughter pointed at the sky last week and said that one's walking to us. She was right. It took all afternoon, crossed the whole valley, dropped three drops of rain like loose change, and moved on. Generous things don't always stay. Doesn't make them less generous. I watched it go with my kid on my shoulders, passing it down.
#cumulusclouds #bigsky #fathers #summerafternoon
