Hoofprints

We walked up to the Dome recently to see the new green lichen growing on the rocks. There may be pooled water or even a small spring under the rocks; the Dome attracts a lot of wildlife. The earth around the Dome had been marked by dozens of hooves in various sizes.

A message in dust,

letters from a wild font:

antelope hoofprints.

Morning Mist

Gray morning drenched with sage --

snow on the mountain's crest

turns to mist at her feet.

Blanca Meets Alma

Eric hand-painted this sign to mark one of the roads on the way to our house. The sign had been missing for months, and we were worried that our friends would get lost trying to find our place. We have very few visitors, so we try to make it as easy as possible for those who venture out here to find us.

Writing haiku and tanka has been very hard for me lately. I've been distracted by work and by worries about finding work. I've applied for jobs in larger areas. I worry about leaving the Valley. Thinking about leaving makes me feel like I should start to separate myself from the area. But then I wonder why I eventually detach myself from everything that's deeply important to me.

A Place in the World

When the world outside meets the world inside,
the ragged edges of a torn self
find each other, settle in,
and form a seam.

And you learn that gravity is not a force
that keeps your body on the earth
when you most want to leave,
but something more like grace,
guiding you to a place
you never left.

Season of Wind

The night wind

sighed without stopping;

in my dream

all was erased

but sand and stone.

Bone Mask

Mask-shaped bone:

a mute mystery

we would not touch.

Bones are a prominent feature of this arid landscape. We find bones from rabbits and other small animals, as well as larger bones from elk, antelope or cattle. The dogs, of course, are much better at finding these bones than we are, especially the fresh bones left by hunters. One afternoon, as we walked along an electric fence beside the highway, our blue heeler Shelby found an extravagant display of deer bones scattered across the ground. Tissue and skin still clung to the electric fence. The deer had apparently been struck by a passing vehicle and torn to pieces by the wire.

One afternoon we found a bone shaped like a mask, with three holes positioned at the points of the eyes and mouth. It was probably a pelvis, but it was somehow eerie in its simple rendering of a human face. I picked it up briefly, then put it back on the ground. We often bring bones, rocks and dried wood back to the house with us, but we wouldn't bring the mask bone home.

Sand Dunes

On winter dunes

the wind breathes a spine and ribs

into cold sand.

We went for a hike at Sand Dunes National Park a couple of weeks ago. It was a Monday morning, and the admissions booth was deserted. A note taped to the window said that admission was free that day.

On the Sand Dunes, the sky is an inversion of the ocean. We climbed to the crest of a dune and looked out into a bowl of blue space.

I lay in the sand and made a sand angel. If you look closely, you can make out her wings and the skirt of her robe. I accidentally stepped on her abdomen when I got up.

I was very happy that day; I felt free. As I lay on my back, swimming in the sand and watching the sky, I thought:

I was here.

I saw the moon.

Morning Smoke

One skein of smoke

rising against brown hills,

solitary fire.

I suspect that living in a remote area encourages a morbid fascination with neighbors. I'm especially fascinated with the little settlement to the South of us, a collection of hybrid dwellings that appear to be uninhabited -- most of the time. But every now and then, I spot a tantalizing scrap of evidence of life. A plume of smoke on a frosty winter morning, a battered white truck pulling up to the settlement, an outdoor fire burning on a windy January evening. We've actually seen our neighbor walking around his property, and Eric met him once at the Polish convenience store in Blanca. In the evening, when I turn the solar panels to the East to catch the next sunrise, I look to the South to see if I can spot the lights on our neighbor's house. We're never really sure if he's there or not, or how he comes and goes, or what he does. But we are certain he exists. A neighbor's existence is always reassuring.

The second photo is not our neighbor's house; it's our front yard. The wooden structure once held a cistern that collected water from our well pump. I later filled it with tumbleweeds and left it in the yard, where I've unofficially declared it "land art." In Denver, this would violate about ten different zoning regulations.