I live in a house where an apple tree keeps sending leaf messengers to the doorstep. Beginning in October and continuing as snow falls at the year’s end, I’ve arrived home to feel the crunch of leaf matter under my feet while I look through my pockets for my keys. For weeks and weeks I’ve been sweeping them up from the front yard to put in the back yard...
Read MoreWhat gift do you want? Angels might want to know
As we munched turkey leftovers spread on toast with gravy the question went around the table, “What do you want for Christmas this year?” Everyone else wanted experiences or edibles: no stuff! I, however, wanted a big thing: that white baby-face Fiat 500 I rented for a day to do a quick trip to Phoenix. I loved the Bose speakers, the moon roof, the...
Read MoreLightning meets candle; When waking overtakes the still small flame
On a local mountain peak where a metal fire tower begins to shiver with the approach of fall, distant lightning arrives with sunrise one morning. To the creep of yellow and the spread of turquoise on the eastern horizon an insertion of orange meets the flashes of lightning over Winslow. Briefly bright cumulus clouds pulse for a hundred miles along the...
Read MoreSleeping inside a cloud; It’s all a dream
Whenever you lie anywhere on a cot in a sleeping bag with a delicious red plaid flannel lining, your very dreaming might feel cozy like floating upon a gentle cloud. If that cot and red sleeping bag is inside a fire lookout at eight or nine thousand feet, and it is an August day with monsoon moisture lowered down around your ears, then you might actually...
Read MoreFire on our mountain; Meet Sam McGee in the oven
Lately at the lookout I’ve been reading verses by Robert Service. (In a busy fire season, one finds balance where one can.) Sometimes called “The Canadian Jack London,” Service liked his people and places to have a bit of grit. It’s not hard to imagine him feasting on the details of a fire camp, so as I watched rain sprinkle the dark swath of the Schultz...
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