Chewing the Cud

  • Spring 2020

    I step outside the back door with a cup of coffee.  It’s 5am and the dog needs letting out.  It’s March 20 and a moonless morning.  The air is as black as the sky.  Stars play games with one another to see who is the better showoff.  The tiniest beam and shout.  Big ones puff…

  • A Sunday of Profit and Death

    I am afraid this comment might feel like a barb and a bit hard to hear.  However.  As you know, the two teams in this Sunday’s Super Bowl game are the “49ers” and “Chiefs.” I’ve a friend who died years ago.  He was nothing if not a 49er fan.  Didn’t much matter what else was…

  • American Progress

    I like the idea of Thanksgiving as much as the next white guy, I imagine.  I like it as much as most of my Indian, Native American, and Indigenous friends.  Only a fool thinks there is no need for thankfulness for having this shot to live out our particular existence within and of creation; having…

  • To Be Better Than We Are

    “It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.” Wendell Berry The canyon was tuff.  Sometime ago, long before my memory or that of my parents, a volcano erupted and spread ash across this New Mexican landscape.  When the hottest of ash returns to land it welds itself to…

  • Tomorrow

    Should reincarnation include animals, then I hope for the duck. What life is so wonderful, as one who can swim, fly, and walk.