Saturday, February 12, 2005

A quote from William Stafford (Writing the Australian Crawl): This daily practice I have kept up ever since, and the pattern established then prevails as my way to write--during a quiet interval, without felt obligation to do other than find my way from impulse to impulse. I feel ready to follow even the most trivial hunch, and my notes to myself are full of beginnings, wavery hints, all kinds of inconclusive sequences sustained by nothing more than my indulgent realization that if it occurred to me it might somehow be justified. 12:34:03 PM    comment []

Driveabout I checked the oil. I checked the coolant. I inflated all four tires to proper pressure. I brought leashes for the dogs. I remembered my cash. I remembered my package and letter that needed mailing. I forgot my camera. But here is what we saw: Three horses--a white one, a roan one, a bay--standing in a row at identical angles 50 feet apart in a pasture. Fourteen blackfaced sheep locked in a paddock. One roadkill--a freshly decapitated whitetail buck with its neck opening exposed full-on and its legs and feet still extended onto the pavement. One black-and-white border collie pushing his face into a squirrel hole in the middle of a dead brown field. One caramel-colored panel truck that pulled out onto the highway and didn't accelerate when we were approaching doing 70 with bad brakes. The unruffled white sheet of the frozen Goose Lake. The wild plum winery, with its dormant orchards, the tiny brown trees, all around it. Too many whitefaced Herefords forced to stand and lie in the mud and filth of a tiny enclosure. One 20-foot plastic cowboy leaning on a sign that read "Welcome to Lakeview, Oregon." * * * * * * * * * This morning we hear the jolly songs of many birds. Not a robin or magpie among them. They think it's spring, perhaps, or maybe they're practicing for the real thing. And the music of tumbling water provides a continual undercurrent of hopehopehope. The heart swells a little. This weekend I learn full-on Acrobat. Scan images. Get the overdue essay in shape. Open the windows and let in this moment of pseudo-spring. Pray for a string of consecutive cruel late-winter blizzards so our stream will flow all summer and allow us to stay put. 12:23:27 PM    comment []