Weather Report - Journal Entry

Morning after New Year's eve.

A cluster of balloons is snagged in the branches above my street. Big blue fruit. This reminds me of Weather Awareness Week in grade schoool when the local weatherman came to our 4th grade class. He etched clouds on the board, made feathered edges with an eraser, translated each cloud into the weather we all knew & explained the difference. Suddenly it sounded like code -- clouds & wind the vowels of weather, & in thirty minutes it became complicated as math. I was happy for rain to stay rain, & clouds, clouds.

Using colored chalk we drew weatherscapes on the board all week. On our test: define stratosphere, atmosphere, Jet Stream, & draw cirrus, cumulus, & cumulonimbus clouds--the one I most remember because it meant rain.Friday, class gathered in the schoolyard, balloons on string in each hand. Tiny messages rolled like scrolls explaining, & asking how far? would you please return it? were tied to the string with an SASE.

We released them on 3, & and all stood pointing, trying to track our own among the slow swarm drifting away. For the next month, Miss Libby charted the responses: Concord, in a cow pasture. Another found floating in Lake Winnewanna by a fisherman. Only one left the state -- Pennsylvania.

Distance was everything. It mattered more than I can say that my balloons go far away and be found. This is not a need in me that's died; always, I am sending up balloons through starving trees.