The rain was Old Testament in its ferocity. It lashed the house and hammered the windows and surged like a river through the street. It sluiced down the hillside in foaming torrents carrying with it anything not bolted to the ground. It seeped under the doors and through the windows and dripped incessantly … More XXIX. Hunting Sadie Vail
On the eve of destruction a brown thrasher paced through its liquid repertoire, each note dripping with lyricism, lust and a hint of threat. Beyond the thicket where the horizon opened to infinity and the terrain fell away to distant Fawn Creek, skies darkened to a purplish bruise and darkened still. Leaves … More Watching and waiting
We hadn’t been in the small town of Cuba for more than 15 minutes when an elderly lady approached to express how much she enjoyed my photography. I thanked her, flattered at the recognition, when a sudden infusion of doubt poisoned the compliment. No good deed goes unpunished, I … More Not who you think I am
We were a few miles east of the small town of Goff when I realized I’d missed my turn. Or, to put it another way, I’d missed what I thought was my turn. The road in question, something Google maps had assured me was the fastest, most direct line … More Old road, new road
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
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