Whatever is Lovely . . .
“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise, dwell…
Cottonwood Elegy
Just outside the little hamlet of Simms, I passed two sets of farm buildings defined by L-shaped rows of gigantic old cottonwoods. Splintered, raggedy, surrounded by tumbles of fallen branches. But trying their best to…
Time Machine
I drove the Grizzly Gulch-Unionville loop last weekend on a day so perfect, so clean and blue and radiant I couldn’t stay inside. 44 years ago, soon after my arrival in Montana, colleagues at the…
Naive Art
I love art: old masters, sculptures, cartoons, line drawings, wood-cuts, assemblages, pictographs, color-drenched quilts, rich abstracts, the sweet simple studies of a face or a body or a cat. We worshipped Mother’s stormy sea painting…
Heat
I adore these sun-scorched days. Days I begin by tucking up the house to capture the night’s cool. And end when I open the windows, crank up the fans, and revel in the downward slide…
More–More
Six weeks ago I “enjoyed” a bout of malaise—ultimately tamed by art that spoke of grace, of acceptance. I was fresh off a winter of recovering from knee surgery—and for good measure—kidney stones and bronchitis….
Malaise AND Season of Grace
I know that the tattoo on my arm says “YES YES YES YES YES,” but right now I’m feeling “NO NO NO NO NO.” In fact, I’ve spent the last several days trying to construct…
Bonus Time
Growing up, “bonus” meant the red tin of fruitcake that my dad received at Christmas from the Farmer’s Alliance boss. Every year. Without fail. No one in our family savored fruitcake. But no one in…
It Ain’t No Time for Lengthy Speeches
This is down in the swampland, anything goesIt’s alligator bait and the bars don’t closeIt’s the real thing down in LouisianaDid you ever see a Cajun when he really got madWhen he really got trouble…
Pleasant
A month beyond my second knee replacement surgery, I’ve had time to consider the bizarre parts of this experience. Including the label I was awarded in doctor’s notes. Formulaic, dictated, once considered almost classified, such…