Ghost Buffalo

I've been trying to learn to breathe.  I'm very good at holding my breath, and rushing myself about from here to there to somewhere else.  But drinking water, and breathing air always seem profoundly new to me.   So there I was, walking with the dog along the river, watching the red-wings do their thing, thinking of nothing much, when  it suddenly occurred  to me  to be   a writer  is to aspire  to the spark, and the fire.  What human  wouldn't want to know  the solitary crow, poppies,  snaps,  forget me nots.  cottonwoods.  and four-o-clocks.   I've recently finished a commission of several paintings for a doctor's office over in Junction.  Large pieces.  The daunting substrate and the big ol paintbrush sat there for weeks before I could bring myself to begin. Somehow the stakes feel so ridiculously high, they dwarf the sky.  I...

The Wanderer There is no end to the wanderer's sorrow. The wisdom of Erda queried by Wotan, the counsel of Ragna sung in a saga. I'll follow tomorrow, tomorrow if ever, for I am no friend of Volsung or Vala. Timothy Murphy ------- Here's Tim reciting the Dirge from the Wulf, which he and Alan Sullivan had translated a few years back: Beowulf

A disturbing trend: Bach at the Burger King If the author's name seems familiar, yes, he is the son of California poet laureat, Dana Gioia, well known author of Can Poetry Matter.   The good works have commenced, the voice is a gift, and the acorn don't fall far from the oak. Meanwhile, here on the edge of the world, though there be drought which runs deep and wide, there be dusk, and dawn, and red dirt paths that cannot be denied.   And of course there be dragons.  A book of essays I highly recommend:  I've actually been quoting from this book for a couple of months now here on the outpost, and often in casual  conversation.  In addition to being a life-long advocate for the land, George is a fine writer, has a keen sense of the sciences, the arts, the land, and of course humanity -- and is imminently quotable.  He's an elder, and a sender, and it was a delight to get to know him a little at his home in Gunny a few months...

A culture is the ensemble of stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves.     - Clifford Gearts  De Activation I have decided to ration  my daily penchant          for distraction.        (So much  depends       upon         the whole shebang and  the fraction) .   Meanwhile, Even as we grow old in the spring,  the  ode  begins,  it tallies forth -- it bursts  through -- though I should say  sometimes  I  misconstrue.   Is that  abnormal  asks   the  songing toad   and the soggy moon .   Dunno   replies the desert bloom ,    I'm brand new too.     ...

In My Craft Or Sullen Art In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art.

The land was ours before we were the land's ... Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found that it was ourselves We were withholding from our land of living, And forthwith found salvation in surrender.   - Frost Americans today usually talk about "place" and "property" as though they were interchangeable. But if you are going to really consider "place" the first thing you have to do is separate it from the concept of property. Both place and property are matters of possession, but it's who and what are possessed, and how, that are important.  "Property" is a cultural convention whereby a person has the belief, confirmed legally by properly filed papers, that he or she possesses a piece of land by virtue of investing some money or labor in it.  "Place" on the other hand, is something related to the land that comes to possess a person.  -  George Sibley Knowing that you love the earth chan...

Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges by Wallace Stevens Ursula, in a garden, found A bed of radishes. She kneeled upon the ground With flowers around, Blue, gold, pink, and green. She dressed in red and gold brocade And in the grass an offering made of radishes and flowers. What I love about Le Guin is that she contained multitudes, with focus.  One minute she could say something like this: Adults seek moral guidance and intellectual challenge in stories about warrior monkeys, one-eyed giants, and crazy knights who fight windmills.  Literacy is considered a beginning, not an end. ....Well, maybe in some other country  but not in this one.  In America the imagination is generally looked on as something that might be useful when the TV is out of order.  Poetry and plays have no relation to practical politics.  Novels are for students, housewives, and other people who don't work. Fantasy is for children...