A whirlpool


These are the end times. All is winding down.
I only have three major projects--two papers and a story,
though I also have a lecture I want to give and a speach as well.
Everything seems to be happening in its own time.
I don't feel pressured inordinately.
Everything I see I see as it were the last and most precious time,
everything has a fresh glimmer and shade.
Widge is happy and smiling everyday - he is fit and healthy,
her looks like a young man again.
Everyone who pets him comments on
his daffodil-like coat, so soft and glossy.

Everyday is prismatic and blue--
too much for my eyes, the light, when I come out from a building
into it all.
I prefer the shade to sit, but relish the depth of the blue, darker toward the horizon.
Glacier lilies, lupine, and tulips-
snow still high in the Rattlesnake, holding to steep slopes.
My grass is healthy and I have tulips by the fence.
I think about how I ever will move all of my stuff out.
How will I get rid of all I don't need?
Will I say goodbye to everyone - and am I satisfied with the relationships
I’ve built and the time I’ve spent?.
There is so much land that is still so far from all I have done here.

Montana is a song bird on my shoulder
And a treasure map in my pocket—
Mysteries to hear and discover
and ultimately love

Brief Backlog

Tuesday I had my rewrite of "I, Sisyphus" workshopped and it was the most positive workshop I've ever had. Normally I get lambasted, but it was too sunny for all that.

Wednesday I was a bit ornery and stayed home and worked all day. In the afternoon I decided what I really wanted was a good drive in the country. Listening to NPR I drove down Pattee Canyon south, east, and then north back toward East Missoula. Widge and I looped back around to Pattee Canyon and found a trailhead we had never hiked, called Crazy Creek. We hiked and bushwhacked our way up a steep knoll and found ourselves on a great open ridgeline. It was about eight-o’clock at night; the sun was setting against heavy rainclouds. The hike down was a bit tough.

Thursday, Hanna and I went to hear her roommate play in the Old Post; they are a samba band. The bar was packed but a bunch of girls I know from past and present English classes made dancing room up front. Samba ain’t bluegrass, but we fared well enough. It was a lot of fun and was a nice change (and stretch) from only dancing to bluegrass. It felt like we knew everyone in the bar – it was one of those nights.

A way-general update to the times

I've been away. Sorry. I've been emeshed. I've started writing the two major term papers that will be due in about a month – both 20+ pages. I love what I am doing. I am starting to formalize my own theory of experience, which I started writing out in journals last summer. I'm getting some good support.

When I'm not writing those or nonfiction, I hang out with Hanna. We dance a good bit which is great fun – eat meals mostly though, all we have time for. Spring is certainly alive now – all my trees are budding light green leaves. I've got my yard table back out of the garage and have been reading quite a bit in the sun. Too bad I can't write out there.

Physically I haven't felt as great as perhaps I should. My tendon strain in my right forearm has never quite righted itself. I've been real tired regardless of heavy sleep. That's how it goes sometimes. I think it is because of all the sunlight. It weighs on me sometimes.

All the same the next month ought to be great: I have two speeches to give; my dad and brother are coming to town; it's spring; I graduate; and my classes and terms are in fine standing.

Yea - ha

* * * * *

What if you slept? And what if in your sleep you dreamed, and what if in your dream you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand? Ah. What then?
-Samuel Coleridge