Several days ago, my younger sister and I were talking about the delightful way our grandchildren see the world around them and then say what they see. She told me about her three year-old granddaughter and how she tattles on herself by telling her Mom that she is going to be ‘red’ today. I told her about my then four year old granddaughter and the cloud factories, and the poem I had written about it.
A few days later, while doodling yet another image, I wasn’t particularly pleased at what was happening on the paper, but continued because it was there to do. As I was finishing the image, I flipped the sketchbook sideways to see if that might alter my negative response. What I found was a cloud factory. I love it when that happens.
My granddaughter is now twelve, perhaps going on 35.
Cloud Factories
(for Katie at age 4)
Air was bitter cold,
intense with sunlight on snow,
as we drove up Hwy 43.
You told me how important
it was that everyone should
look to see something pretty,
like clouds that were bunny
rabbits, chasing clowns
with baggy pants and funny
flapping shoes. Little girls
running after soft baby chicks,
with their long hair streaming
out behind them.
I looked to see black and white
smoke stacks chugging, while
you saw little girls chasing hugs
blown on the wind, created
by “cloud factories.”
Later, driving into the city,
I saw a billboard that declared,
“Depression is the major cause of suicide.”
Not today. Today, I’m learning
how to hug a little girl
with long dark curls
streaming out behind her.
Elizabeth Crawford 12/2001
This is the image I found inside my sketchbook when I flipped it on its side.

Cloud Factory 8/27/09