Encl. photo — Ridgeline Savings, c. Oct.

Dear Sky,

The committee has been meaning to write this letter for some time. We are sorry it took a formal absence to prompt us. That is on us, and the minutes should reflect it.

We want you to know that we have noticed you. Not always — we will be honest about that. There were mornings when we walked directly beneath you and looked only at our phones, or our shoes, or the middle distance of our own concerns. But we noticed you more than you may know. Gil Muñoz, our treasurer, says you were the best part of his commute for seventeen years. Secretary Okafor-Strand says you once improved a difficult Thursday without anyone asking you to, simply by being what you were at 8:15 in the morning, above the bus shelter on Elm. Councilmember Hatch — who, as noted above, abstained from the vote on this very letter, as she abstains from most things — once stayed in her car for eleven minutes at the Ridgeline Savings parking lot because of what you were doing with the clouds. She did not say this at the meeting. But the minutes reflect it nonetheless, because Secretary Okafor-Strand was there and she remembers.

We have noticed your details as well. The way you go a little green before a serious storm, as a sort of courtesy warning. How you keep the stars behind you during the day so as not to overwhelm anyone. The particular quality of light on the fourth Tuesday of October that makes everything look like a painting of itself, briefly, before the feeling passes and it's just a parking lot again. The violet at 4 a.m., which no one has been able to explain and which the committee voted 4-1 not to investigate, on the grounds that some things are better left appreciated than understood. (The dissenting vote was Councilmember Hatch, who wanted a subcommittee. She was outvoted.)

We have no demands. We have, the committee agrees unanimously, only this: please come back whenever you are ready. We will look up more. We are putting it in writing so that we are accountable to it.