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A million gnats and tiny moths dance silently in the spider webs outside my window. The front door is open with the screen door latched. It’s a late spring night, all damp and cool, without a breath of wind. Suddenly coyotes yip and howl up by the mailbox 50 yards away. Dogs bark in response, a canine pandemonium. The coyotes move away, the barking tapers off. Last to quit is the little yappy-dog at the trailer on the hill. Stillness once again. Nothing but the unheard sound of questions in my midnight heart and trying not to eat again.
And now it’s Father’s Day. Terrific.
Maybe he can rise up from the dead, assemble all his parts from ash in four locations, and decide to do it right. But now I’m older than he ever was, content with what I see in the mirror after a shave. He used to use electric razors, always buzzing, buzzing in the bathroom, stinky hot burnt oily smell, and then the Aqua Velva. (Afterwards a half-smoked Camel floating in the bowl.) I know all this because who ever had a second bathroom? And the children had to wait. Aftershave, hot oil, cigarettes, and shit. Someone should put that in a spray can, sell the scent, and call it “Daddy Doom.” It’s stopped me in my tracks for forty years.
But now another dream of treasure hidden in a cave. A dark-skinned muse pretends to hold a pencil in her hand. The wind out on the mesa blows. Dusty blocks of gold slide into place like monster stones at Machu Picchu, so tightly stacked there isn’t room to stick a knife. I use a razor when I shave, three blades and lubricant that smells like fruit or herbs or flowers. I tell my wife I love her and I mean it. I can’t believe how old I am, it feels like seventeen without the sex.
This evening I’ll go hiking by the gorge. The stars will not be out yet but the shadows will be long. The animal body’s knees are firm and tough. I’m proud of how its feet step off the rocks, the way it holds its spine erect to breathe and look and listen. A tall coyote on the prowl, but nothing barks. (I eat yappy-dogs for breakfast now if I can get the slices in a toaster.) No one tells me what to do, as if I’d listen anyway. The more I walk, the clearer the connection.
God comes down and checks the plans. There’s no one in the parking lot. The old truck starts right up and runs like crippled thunder, wheels akimbo in a wicked wander, mostly in-between the lines.
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New Mexico,
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June 13, 2013 12:49 PM
by JHF
in
Nature
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I have so many of these shots now. Too much beauty!
Went walking the other day, my usual (for now) four-mile hike. I was planning to detour down a large arroyo—animal tracks, burrows, skeletons, artifacts—when I remembered I’d seen some beautiful red cactus flowers of some kind just starting to open at the end of my usual trail, so I stuck to it. It’s a good thing I did. It’s hard to overstate the impact color like this has when you’re walking through the sagebrush. (How could I not have gone back to see these?)
The last few days, I’ve gone out after supper, so that I come back just after sunset. Four miles, kiddies! That’s just under an hour and a half—maybe 75+ minutes?—counting pit stops and water breaks and taking it all in. As I’ve said many times before, I almost never see anyone else. That’s a long time to be completely alone, surrounded by glory. It’s the number one reason I wanted to come here. Going out to walk most days is a good way to remind myself that everything is just damn peachy-fine and I should shut up and enjoy being a goddamn hero, you know?
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Taos Valley Overlook
June 9, 2013 12:29 PM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
Fleeing in a hail of bullets
It wasn’t easy, but I tracked him down. The 111-year-old fugitive from justice has been living all this time in Taos, New Mexico. Thought he was pretty clever, he did, except that bad guys always screw up in the end. What gave our boy away? The only single-wide in Llano Quemado without tires on the roof!
That, and he never traded in the Ford.
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Llano Quemado
June 9, 2013 9:47 AM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
Funny bunny
Just thought I would put this up again. We do have a mess o’ rabbits in these parts. Pretty soon the coyotes will show up again to thin the herd. Howl ‘n’ dance all night, them do. Life on the frontier!
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June 7, 2013 1:09 AM
by JHF
in
Nature
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Looking east from Taos Valley Overlook
I took this yesterday, the same day I fell down. You could imagine the photographer standing there with a throbbing bloody knee, perhaps. Once more I am in awe of how far and how well one can see when the air’s not fouled by smoke from burning forests. There’s a little fire haze in this shot, actually.
That one just grew and grew, then ambled off southeast. That’s what most thunderstorms are like here. Not the scary dark monsters we had on the Eastern Shore that roared out of nowhere on white humid days and blew down the trees. High desert storms are gigantic evolving convection machines you can sit back and watch. Much of the rain never reaches the ground, but at higher elevations especially, I’ve seen it unload straight down like crazy and leave the ground covered with hail.
When it does rain or even threatens to, we get this amazing refrigerated wind. Rapid evaporation chills the air aloft and it plunges to the ground. (In some circles they call this a “virga bomb.”) A storm came through Taos late this afternoon; it rained like hell in town but we hardly got a drop. What we did get was a ferocious cold dust storm with thunder and lightning, this just after driving by a house for sale one might enjoy if driven to and from there blindfolded.
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Taos Valley Overlook
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