Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the win-swayed web. -D. DeLillo
Sweetwater Station, WY.
Population 206.
Elevation 6562.
Mad Dog and the Pilgrim Bookstore:
Bitch Creek (and her railroad trestle):
Rock. Wood. Cattle. Even People. All carried. Lifted across stretches of earth by rail car. The old evidences of life gone by still existing. They evolve, are twisted and reclaimed. But still. There was a time when railroads carried it all. Thundering through country, rolling quite soundly across this creek, that hollow. Shooting electric from forests edge into the great wide open. It thrills to still see proofs. Imagination mixing with the still healthy smell of creosote. The craft of such structures. Our travels to and from. The linger and gaze of minds upon what once was. Idling ourselves in the present for a glimpse of past. Moons having set the rails to quick bands of silver. Deep Tetons holding court above. Horses distant. The fuzz and static of big creeks spanned; heard even above the internal locomotions of black diesels pulling thousand-ton children strung from here to God.
Trafficking in spring. This a somewhat mean statement as snows continue to fly in the Rockies. I suppose to ask for green warmth is illicit, almost a failing to anticipate. It’s beautiful, if tiring, waking to another 7 inches of white world. Painted upon everything, no telephone pole or mailbox not entombed. I wander not completely in a straight line. The road is without track, the good patrons of Sunday morning not-so-secretly feckless. We acquire the remnants of hibernation and dawn them for another quiet ride. Sure the sun makes appearances, but the consolation is weak and unlettered.
Home. Driggs, ID (or, Drictor, Wydaho):
Brothers, Oregon:
Grizzly Mountain, Central Oregon:
Atop a mountain I can still climb, we’ve poured pad after pad, set tower after tower, strung innumerable wire and cable. All of it hooked to the grid and juicing our most lucid tweets and texts the world over.
Things are happening. Spring glimpsed. I’ve taken to cheating this year — the high desert of Central Oregon an early oasis. Yes, yes I’ll slip back into the mountains. But now, just now, the sun is beginning to make shine.
In coming back to earth, I suppose it’s only fair to indulge in human-like affairs. To wit: tea. book(s). colored pencil sharpening…
Ladies and Gentlemen a mister Lou Reed (1942-2013):
Upon hearing Oh! Sweet Nothing covered loudly and perfectly in a loft during a black, cold Alaskan winter, I absolutely wanted more. I sought him out. His Sung. Spoken. Somewhere in between self. It didn’t matter. Lou Reed always made a certain kind of sense. Surface and musical simplicities making room for a lyrical mess, one prone to stay deeply with you, coursing and creating thought like a river carving this earth. The loud. The quiet. The place Reed felt most comfortable was making you uncomfortable, seen, and more intelligent with honest realization. He shaped. And this matters.