“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 [...]
Taos
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 [...]
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 [...]
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?” [...]
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 [...]
.png)