27 August 2018: I take a walk a cold Monday night in August. Yes, this is Montana and it’s been raining all day, the thermometer hovering around 50. Grey and puffy, the sky has been quiet through the whole performance. A silent film. The pause between stanzas. The turning of a page. And I have … Continue reading Beyond the Window →

13 August 2018: So it’s Sunday and we smell the smoke of other places, the whole town and all the mountains wearing a strange, yellow haze of smoke and sun. I stare at my chapbook manuscript before I send it off for a friend to have a look. I’m not sure what’s happening with it—as … Continue reading A Million Things in Plain Sight →

6 August 2018: I used to read Donald Hall years ago, after college, in a different time and place, and now he’s dead, and it’s fine enough I be the one to tell you. Aging is nothing like the seasons gathering on his farm. A different mode, a different time. I can’t ripple the same … Continue reading A Second Affirmation →

23 July 2018: Today I came home from work and wrote in Sharpie the word sonder* on the calendar above my desk. Odd. Why do that? Because I heard it used earlier. Because I heard it used earlier and want to remember it. Because I want to remember what it means. Because it means a … Continue reading The Word Sonder →

16 July 2018: The shiny-headed men waiting at the repair shop on 7th, living their retired life in Montana, still come in exclaiming things like “Oh, it’s Monday again ain’t it.” I come in bright and early before work for a quick oil change to sit in the waiting area and eat the free donuts … Continue reading The Repair Shop on 7th →

9 July 2018: I’ve finally gotten around to reading Robert Bly, like an easterner who finally travels west to see the Grand Canyon or marvel at the other ocean. That is how it feels, arriving late to the party. For me, James Wright, William Stafford, even Ted Kooser, they have been like the easterner’s D.C. … Continue reading I’ve Finally Gotten Around to Reading Robert Bly →

2 July 2018: Now we have July—the thinnest blue above the mountains and all the mountains still shining green. We have firework stands on the town’s outskirts and freshly mowed lawns. This far north, just past the summer solstice, we have 5:00 a.m. sunrises and a night that doesn’t relieve the sun, truly, till after … Continue reading The Madness, Rack, and Honey of It →

18 June 2018: Before I read another Bob Dylan book, I’d like to say a few words here. I’d like to hand over a conversation. A diálogo ficticio. Something about Dylan, me, and the imagined. Here it is. Don't take it for anything more than what it's worth.   "Ain’t nobody like him, I’ll say … Continue reading Before I Read Another Bob Dylan Book: A Dialogue →

11 June 2018: I had better tell you where I am, and why. That’s how Joan Didion begins her essay “In the Islands.” And I realize I could tell you where I am. It would be simple. Take such and such road. Turn here. At the gas station, turn left. Follow that road west for … Continue reading Such and Such Road →

4 June 2018: It feels like summer this morning. All sun, all green, all blue. Even the blurs of town buses passing by seem to shine with all the light of June. I can hardly believe it. June. I say the word, I write the word, and immediately look out the window. The old silver … Continue reading June or the Raven or How the Sun Split the Morning Shade in Half →