The mouth of the canyon yawned wide into a sleepy Owens Valley. My soles crunched and chewed at tiny tan-gray pebbles as I moved, but it was the gate’s granite incisors rising, sharp and clean that held my gaze. These fangs looked ominous and predatory as the day’s new light amplified the jagged topography. I […]
Continue reading →It is a false equivalency to deduce a giddy mountaintop based on how one feels on the summit. A mountain can’t be giddy. I am giddy. I am on the summit. The summit is, therefore, giddy. No, no, no. That’s silly, the summit was the summit, and I simply stood there. But there was something […]
Continue reading →A walk in the woods. The hermit thrush and Gray granite rhyme, just as Somehow the aspens on a light breeze Trickle through the talus. Communal. Communing. Of a vague utility, And yet so completely necessary.
Continue reading →You feel it on the approach, The unknown, unknowable, The void. A mix of postcard beauty and insecure footing. A fear of where you’re headed, Ultimately. It’s quite but for The wind, Distant rockfall, And the sound of your own deep breaths.
Continue reading →It’s June and there are Christmas lights still hanging on the wooden fence that separates the parking lot from the patio, keeping the beer-swilling riff-raff legal in their choice to drink outside, “No alcohol beyond this point”. They’re out now, the lights, not the riff-raff. And the bulbs are not the typical green and red, […]
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An image of a vintage spinning reel was still fresh in my mind this morning, full of the detail that only meaningful dreams can bring. Wired to a brown pegboard, it was as if the piece of fishing gear was part of a sales display you might see in an old General Store, the year […]
Continue reading →I picked up my pen and began to write. It is a well-balanced Retro 51 Tornado that cost me twenty-five dollars. Retro calls it a tornado because you have to twist the top to bare the nib. Without the twist, there will be nothing but scratches across the smooth Moleskine paper. Do great tools produce […]
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Back before Amazon.com sea changed retail space forever, the local mall was the place to be. It was a Friday morning, though, and the place was rather empty. My cousin and I wandered the vast space looking for the good laughs held within Spencer Gifts. On our way past the food court, we were stopped […]
Continue reading →A stone will only have a purpose when someone picks it up and uses it for something, like a bludgeon. I wish someone would pick me up and use me for something. The stone, on the other hand, sees no difference.
Continue reading →Up close to the fire ring I moved the last of the rocks into place. After four or five beers I felt like royalty and the work went easy. Shaped from boulders I found around the campsite, what I’d made looked like a stone age La-Z-Boy, armrests and all, straight out of the Flintstones. By […]
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