By any definition, Scolopax minor, the American woodcock, is an odd bird. Though classified as a shorebird, it lives on the edges of immature forests. Secretive and exquisitely camouflaged, it’s rarely seen except during its dizzying crepuscular mating display. Its folk names are legion, inspired as much by its haunts as … More Flight of the timberdoodle
February bleeds away to a winter-that-wasn’t. Sunny, warm days turn to snow, snow turns to wind, wind turns to driving rain and warmer days grow warmer still. It isn’t that the weather is unpredictable so much as unstable, erratic to the point of fringing on lunacy. More than one friend asked, if … More Winners and losers
The itch is older than time itself, older than memory or emotion or feeling, older than the red pelt that once covered it in an unbroken carpet. From the first it was there, slightly off-centered from the zenith along the zigzagging seam separating the frontal bone to the parietal, … More Aftermath
A friend said, when will you know you’re done, and I said, I guess it’ll just come to me. I’ll just know. But his question lingered and remained evermore in the back of my mind, resurfacing at odd moments with a gravity altogether unwarranted considering the raw newness of … More The only way
Restless, uneasy, wanting more than a caged interior existence, I went out as the sun westered. Shadows spread like spilled ink and the light warming to a golden luminance gilded the whitewashed monolith of the grain elevator with its sprightly sprig of wheat. Without thought or plan I drove the streets desirous … More A time, a place, a people
Later I thought of that unnamed canyon south of Albuquerque whose dark basaltic stones cresting the highest ridges were etched with signs and patterns, with weird faces and feathered serpents and, along the tallest promontory, dozens of finely-boned feet, their toes and soles a deep burnished umber contrasting starkly against the black … More House of unwritten stories
The big pale bird flew low to the stubbled field, its powerful wingbeats propelling it toward a sharp rise where the land fell away toward the distant Little Blue River. Something about its flight pattern seemed odd, simultaneously more buoyant and erratic, its color the epitome of a gray wintry dawn. The light was bad, … More Winter ghost
It wasn’t just cold on the main street of Barnes, it was antarctic in the old-fashioned sense of the word. An icy wind sluiced up from the south unopposed by structure or hill or tree, kicking up clouds of dust, whipping flags to froth and jackknifing down collars, turning skin to stone … More An imaginary war
Much has been written about the Occupy Wall Street movement—oceans of ink, in fact, though it’s questionable how many people actually read those millions of words to their bitter end, much less grasped the meanings behind it. My own experience was surprisingly detached. On the one hand I applaud any grassroots attempt … More Occupy Blue Rapids
One frosty morning, without planning aforethought or consultation of a map, I turned off Highway 9 onto County Line Road and headed north. Not that it was much of a road. For the first mile or so it was wide enough for one-and-a-quarter mid-sized cars to pass without … More The endless road
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