•
Every time I return to the town where I grew up, another field has died. I think, “They can’t build anymore houses. There isn’t any room.” And then they find room. The grassy lot, once rich with goldenrod and dandelions. The meadow, once overrun with blackberries but open, muddy in the rain, perched over…
•
Take a stone from the desert. Carry it home with you; keep it safe in the inner pouch of your backpack. Unwrap it carefully. Feel how it has cooled. Turn it over in your hands. Feel the softness of your fingers, exfoliated by wind and stone, and how the rock, too, is smoother than…
•
Making the transition from the rain forests of Oregon to the second driest state in the country has been quite the adventure. Utah is beautiful in a completely different way from the Pacific Northwest. There are the red deserts with ravens high above them; the aspen forests that flutter like wings; the long chains…
•
“Does it have a tide?” I asked. “A very slight one.” “Are there ever any actual waves?” “When you get out far enough.” “Do people swim in it?” “Sometimes. Usually it’s too cold.” “It doesn’t smell like the ocean,” I said, but they were skipping stones and had stopped listening. Too many questions, I…
•
If I was upset when I was younger I would run to the trees. I would stare up at them and hope that they might know me. I would stare intensely, my whole neck tilted back, and I’d hold my body still so that when the wind came through I would feel like a…
•
I cannot reach you on foot; I cannot run to you on sunny days, or sit quietly on your banks. I will never know you well, but I doubt anyone does. I’ve heard little about you. It seems that you’re not charismatic enough—nothing like the Colorado River, or the Green River. You aren’t large…
•
I woke in the morning to snow. On the way in we’d hiked after dusk, so I hadn’t seen the river yet, nor the mountains on either side. Throughout the day they revealed themselves, coolly, like the moon rising above the horizon. They were blue, and in some places flat on top, like forbidden…
•
We hear the clearing before we see it. A parting of winds, a pause in the flickering. We emerge from the flame-trees. Our faces are painted yellow in the light. Flames burning underwater; flames that carry no heat; that is the way of the aspen trees. From the meadow we see the ski resort…
•
Memory. Hill and wind unfold at once. Sagebrush. Lodge pole pine. Pronghorn antelope. They run as ghosts at dawn, blurred like distant rain, the echo of clouds that shift over the horizon as though they have deflated, are deflating, ghost-clouds reaching some thicket, some lakeshore, the backs of deer, a rain-world intangible here by…
•
This is the gathering place. Down below, a blanket, a fur like the unhealthy coating on a tongue. Amorphous—the emerald of rotting things. No one would dare wade through these waters. From a distance there is nothing beneath. Under the glint of blue-sprawled sky, it is only water. The geese find it clean enough.…