Taos

For Kathy

JHF at Ute Mountain

Opening the heart

“Oh Lord,” I yelped as I came around the bend. The road was nearly blocked by half-buried rocks the size of watermelons. I hit the brakes, pulled the Dakota into low, and did the best I could climbing over big black chunks of lava from the Pleistocene. The constant pitching left and right had already [...]

Reading Angel Minds

geranium

Bitter, blessed, and hopeful

It’s been so long, I hardly know how to write. I often feel ashamed of grieving now, imagining the world has had enough of me or wondering if I’m insane. From time to time I feel all right and even hopeful. There’s a hint of some excitement in the photographs I’m taking with my iPhone [...]

After the Emptiness

dashboard

Picnic of the Dead

I probably never cried so much as all of August, my own birthday month. As if the world had gone and left me which it had. I couldn’t write. I did lose weight. The mountains and the sky were beautiful when I walked. I didn’t go out anywhere except a couple times to buy more [...]

“Old Taos” Aftershock

peyote

Not in Kansas or the suburbs anymore

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked our artist neighbor 20 years ago. There were about a dozen flower pots arranged beside the window, each with several plants like this. (They’re not usually so photogenic. I edited out the little scrappy bits.) “Yep,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Mind if I take a few pictures?” [...]

Soft Angel (Harder Ghost)

Kathy

Visiting in Dubuque, 2008

Thinking of her infected lungs. There is nothing anyone can do. The exhausting dreams that take all night and wake me up but I have only been asleep for 90 minutes. The aching spasms in my legs. The box of ashes on the chair. “Aspiration pneumonia,” the death certificate said,* from stroke-affected swallowing that lets [...]

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