yesterday we mowed lawns, today we shoveled snow

Spring in Montana means sunburn yesterday, roads closed with snow today.

I keep a coat in the back seat of Derby but realize I wear it only when the temps dip below ten.

This poem was published in the Wilderness House Literary Review.

I don't have any photos of Tony, but he knows who he is.

Gas Station Guy

Tony, the gas station man,

names our weather. Sometimes I stop

for a quart of oil I don't need

just to hear him say, “There is a touch of Seattle

in the air today, but tomorrow Phoenix

will blow in." He shook his head 'no' when I asked

if he ever wished he could breathe

the real Pacific air; feel the Arizona heat. The trick

to life, he said, is to like it where you live.

*photo courtesy of my dad: William O'Keefe, April 30, 2010

we all came from remy

My daughter tells me that We-Irish deal with graveyards in a way that it might take her a few years to understand. The more something matters, the more we find humor; the more random our stories might seem.

But, these are not photos from said yard. These are from the journey along the way. The graveyard is in such a remote location, it requires traveling back in time to get there. We'll take a bit of that time to get there:

I wanted this to be a teepee when I was eight years old.

So, first we stopped to listen to the meadowlarks and to eat mom's cupcakes at an old sawmill camp, a skip and a holler away from the unabomber's cabin. A short log-roll  from where my grandparents once lived. We had some stories to remember.

I know you want to know who accidentally dropped her cupcake in the gravel. Sans frosting . . .

We were headed to a place so remote, the people in the valley could get their weather forecast from some notes written on a blackboard at the one local establishment. See if you can make out tomorrow's high (82) and the low (7).

I debated posting this photo since I wanted you to feel like you were traveling back in time
and I am not sure that such Olden Days had weather forecasts such as this.

In a remote mountain valley a wee bit west of here, most of the tombstones are related to this one. The oldest tombstones declare the county of birth in Ireland. Ellis Island, covered wagons, mining camps, mining accidents. Influenza in a deadly winter.


When we visit, we visit and celebrate. And we picnic, certain that this is what our Irish ancestors would want.

Are you waiting with me for John Wayne to ride up on horseback over yonder ridge? When the wind blows, (and I kid you not), we can hear the bag pipes playing Oh Danny Boy.

When I was my daughter's age, most of the tombstones hadn't been acquired yet. Most of our ancestors had been buried with a plastic placard marking their spot. It took We-Irish some decades to see to it that each had a tombstone. When I say we, I mean Dad and his siblings. Three of the eight remain.

 It seems it has befallen Dad to show us the way to make this journey. This time it was to bury ashes of his younger brother next to the military headstone of his twin. And to set the belated stone. Mom supplied flowers, flags and  cupcakes. Dad and dozens of others supplied the memories.

I don't like to think about how it feels to be the brother left to such tendings.

We waited years for the military to supply the apostrophe and then we realized we must quit waiting.

Here, some setting of stone is assigned to the family. Shovels, empty coffee cans for scooping, heavy feed sack for temporary propping. Those who could gather, did. Brother, nephew, cousin. We showed up in waves. Four times we returned to the field and paid our respects. Four times we retired to the shade of the only establishment. Turned out, after a lengthy Q and A with the bartender, we ascertained she was almost related to us. She might have  returned to the field with us had there been a fifth trip up the hill.

Son following father.

The wind at their backs, every road leading home.

what the sun hears

I wanted to share my poem, Yellowtail Canyon, but too bad I didn't have photos from the times I spent there. Drifting in a small boat, in a deep canyon, watching a black bear along the narrow shore, under a berry bush, leisurely eating berries. We call that The Life, don't we?

So I thought I would share a few photos from the web of the area (aka: lifting). But when I started googling photos of row boats, I discovered something about myself. I liked the photos of the sunken row boats better than the photos of unsunk row boats. Out of respect to all the artists and photographers who have shared their work on the internet, I am not lifting their photos to share here, but perhaps you will google them . . .? Google "row boats". And then google "sunken row boats". See what you might learn about your ownself.

And now, having said that I would not post any photos of boats here, I decided that the photos from Stephen Taylor are too good not to share (below), along with a link to more of his work. Click here to view more of Stephen Taylor Photography.

Here's my poem, which was first published The Literary Bohemian. If you don't know this journal, take time to check it out. Yearn.

Yellowtail Canyon

He takes us out in Harry’s rowboat. We dip
oars together, paddles clack, rainbows rip

the river. We drift into a hush- a black bear rolls
onto his back and shakes berries from a bush.

We trust in thunder to tell us it’s time to row
back towards the shore. Wet rope anchored

to the dry side of driftwood, shelter found-
our backs against a stone. A space blanket spread

over us, we tuck our feet in. He tells me how we can
listen to the inside of a star by sending out waves

of sound. We wonder if the sun can hear
the chatter of raccoons, magpies fighting in the pines,

rain falling on our hat brims, the groan
from our boat sinking in cold canyon water.

 not a word

Above two photos courtesy of Stephen Taylor Photography.

what starts with a skunk ends with tiger paws resting in the shade

I begged my sister to let me share her story here. A day in the life of lambing season. These are her words, her life, her embracements.

Cast of characters:

Rex- Mary's husband, Nicest Human Being In the World Ever
Birdie - Rex's 92 year old mother
Annie and Hank- Mary's 2 year old German Wire-haired Pointer, Birdie's 5 year old Aussie herder
Pregant Ewe- pregnant ewe
Skunk - Dead Skunk What Won't Stay Buried
Tiger Paws - Enthusiastic Farm Foreman Cat
Dog Girl of Rainbow Dam - my sister, Mary

Rex and Birdie were still on their tour of the country when I arrived home from work. I set about doing the evening chores. The first task was to bury the dead skunk. Again. There is a dead skunk I keep burying and Annie keeps digging up. She waves it around like a banner and drops it, done with the thing and I go bury it again. I'm getting really good with a shovel.

I scoured the lower pasture for pregnant ewes needing encouragment to return home . . .

not these little guys

I found our most pregnant (she's hugely pregnant) ewe with a foot trapped by a hole in old tree trunk. She was placidly chewing her cud, beaming me SOS signals with her gentle eyes to come get her out. She might have done better with some vocal accompaniments since she blended in with the terrain, looking like a piece of dead wood. I can't claim credit for spotting her, nor she, for her ability to SOS with her eyes. I noticed her because Annie stopped to point her as she ran by.

this is what *hughly pregnant* means

I returned to the house for a saw and tools and was atttempting to release the trapped foot when Rex arrived to help release her. Once released she showed no interest in getting up (her foot was probably numb) we spent the next few hours bringing her feed, water and encouraging her to get up. Rex would heave-ho her hind end up, I would place her feet under and support her front end. Her job apparantly was to do nothing because that's what she did - nothing.

We had come down to the site in the mule cart with the two dogs, Annie and Hank. By then Tiger Paws, the cat, had joined us. When we decided to leave her till morning, we turned to the mule cart to discover Hank, Annie and Tiger Paws loaded up in it, ready to head home. Tails were wagging and tongues were lolling on gloriously wet dogs who had been paddling in the creek. Tiger Paws was holding his precarious balance amongst the dogs.

resting comfortably, weight off her numb foot

Since we smelled like sheep I don't know which living being suffered more on the trip home - us with the wet dogs, or the dogs with the smelly humans.....probably the cat because, to his mind, he is superior to us all anyway. Of course we could have made the dogs walk but it felt like our own little Noah's Ark to crowd in and hug up tight. Since you-all know me so well, you have to believe Dog Girl of Rainbow Dam was in heaven with all these animals around her. As we left,  the ewe blatted her goodbyes to us, the first noise she made all evening besides puffing a bit as we did all the physical work to free her.

when someone picks you wheat

First, I'll say that my daughter won't appreciate the photos I am about to share. Probably, my mom won't be pleased either.

Comes a time we have known before~when we feel a bit out of sorts. Maybe the rain gutters on your house are threatening to rip off your eaves? Probably you are reluctant to climb the ladder and address the problem? Maybe you are feeling like Cali's new black tire (what happened to the pink one?!) ~ lost between the storm door and the front door and no one has noticed you are missing? It may be I am not speaking about gutters and eaves, doors and tires.

In an antique aqua blue vase next to my bed is a bouquet of wheat stalks. A few years ago someone read a short story I had written about wheat fields. And then a few someones went for a drive along the Hi-Line, thinking to take a photo of the crop and send me the photo. Others thought to stop and pick some stalks. Someone parted with a favorite vase.

When I realize I am feeling invisible, or underpowered and not willing to climb ladders to save my eaves, the wheat stalks cheer me on. And when I say wheat stalks, I mean to say wheat pickers.

mastermind

Hidden in the foreground is a row of four colored pegs. Shh, don't say the colors out loud.

Tonight there was homemade pizza baking in the oven.

I was teaching my daughter how to cook and my son (the cook) was sweet about sitting on the other side of the kitchen, allowing me to teach and allowing his sister to learn without his intervention. (Are we the only two people who could use kitchen intervention?) 

We were both rather pleased with ourselves because as she prepared the dough, she noticed that at first it had the same appearance as the dough she'd seen me make for dumplings (as in: chicken and dumplings). But then *tadah* yeast kicked in and did what yeast does. She realized this was not something you'd want to have happen with dumpling dough. (Understand, we are not the cooks in the family and so our victory dances in the kitchen are based on very small gains.) (For further verification of this, I refer you to this post.)

The pups were so happy *the kids* were home to visit. Between each guess played on the board, someone stepped outside to fling a black tire off the deck. The dogs gave chase, and on the far end of this board, my two kids worked together to figure out my hidden color scheme.

I could only give them two hints. For each colored peg that they have in the right position, I can give them a "black point". For each colored peg that is the right color, but in the wrong place I can give them a "white point".

My kids are a little bit like their mom. Surely, there is a pattern to everything in life, right? A cause and effect, a reason for everything, right? As much as we know this is not true often enough in life, we still search for and at times, hold out for patterns with a logical sequence.

When you first glance at the four farthest rows of pegs in this photo, are you the sort to wonder what is going on? Or are you the sort that walks away, not at all curious? Are you the sort to realize a release in tension when you figure out the last peg that needs to be played out is red?

I grew up with a father and a massive set of Irish uncles, all of whom loved to set us twenty-nine or so kids on fire with some sort of riddle that I am now embarrassed to say often took me a few years to figure out.

Like this: As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Each wife had seven cats, each cat had seven bags, each bag had seven kittens. Wives, cats, bags, kits, how many were going to St. Ives?

We had to earn the answer on our own. I think I was in about fourth grade when I realized it was not a math question. Sheesh.

And this one . . . I would rather not say how old I was before I finally wrapped my mind around the answer: Railroad crossing watch out all cars, can you spell that without any R's?   One of my brothers whispered the *yes* answer to me while we were travelling somewhere in the back of the pink family station wagon. It was not a satisfying experience. Being told the answer was not helpful. Knowing the answer is different than arriving at the answer. Arriving at the answer represents a fair amount of investment.

So I am sure I'm not telling you anything you've not arrived at on your own. Instead, let me turn this back to poetry and why I like a poem that insists I become a reader that must step into the poem and travel within the story the poem shares. I must arrive on my own. If the poem does the work for me and tells me the answer (what I should be feeling and why), then I've not invested any part of myself into the experience. 

Look back at the photo. At this moment, my daughter (yeah, that's her finger posing in mid-thought) is working out the answer to the final colored peg. I would ruin it for her, wouldn't I, if  I were to tell her "red". Let her reach that conclusion on her own. If she does, she owns the experience, she owns the board.

If this had been a poem, she would be part of the poem and the poem would be part of her by now. I love that about poetry. A photo taken during the sixth attempt in Mastermind leads right into poetry. Railroad crossings without any cars - right back to poetry, once again. Men with too many wives. Seven Irish brothers with four bushels of kids. Pizza baking in the oven. Poetry: to and fro. 

more numbers

I've been thinking about the turtles all the way down in the last post. There is a sort of faith or trust in the turtle underneath you. Whatever that turtle might actually be. And I suppose that some would say "whomever that turtle might be".

Beyond the naming of the turtle, though, lies the sensation of infinity. What might that feel like? When the experience is a postive one, wow (I mean to say dang!) what a glow, you suppose? But what if that experience of infinity is not positive? What if something so dark and toxic were to come into your life and you cannot shake it off?

Do we have to name what that toxic event or experience before another person could feel the infinite despair? This is a poem of mine that was first published in Fifth Wednesday Journal.  It's a print journal so the poem cannot be read on the internet, but still, you might want to check out this link because *blush* it seems to me they publish some stirring work.

On Naming Her Twelve Hundred Months

For example, she gets August and Tuesday mixed up
and she’d like to name the next month Caesar. Julius
after that. I sense that she prefers infinity, avoiding
things that go around and come back again- which is why
her father asked my mother to tell me the least I could do

is write to her, maybe apply for a visitor’s pass.
I show her the piano in the day room with white keys named
one through eighty-eight. Octaves don’t exist. She skips
the scales we learned as kids but plays killer
ragtime blues. Speaking of music and Tuesday,
my puppy stops barking when I say things
like Excuse me, or Ruby Tuesday, or when I sing the blue

shoe song she likes. Layla is the Irish Setter I rescued
from the pound. Her previous owner gave her up
because she’s afraid of a rifle going off, bullets
in a barrel, the click from a trigger’s pull, the sounds
of hunting season, the sound September makes.

turtles all the way down

What holds you up? What holds up whatever holds you? 

                                                                                         

A friend shared this story with me:

Many years ago, the great American philosopher and psychologist William James was giving a lecture on the cosmology of the universe. He discussed the various theories, both modern and ancient, of how the universe was structured. Halfway through his presentation, an elderly lady raised her hand, and, after being properly recognized by the speaker, said, "Professor James, I know the truth about the world. After the world was created it was placed on the back of a huge turtle and that's how it's held up."

Not wanting to embarrass his paying guest but knowing such mistakes must be corrected for the sake of learning, he gently asked, "My dear lady, if the world is held up by a turtle, what holds up the turtle?" And she replied, "Another turtle, of course." James countered with, "And what holds up that turtle?"

The elderly lady just smiled and said calmly, "Professor James, you can't trick me. I know what you're saying, but it's turtles all the way down!"

I'll be back in a bit to write some more about this. Right now my daughter is dealing with the aftermath of a vehicle accident and is deep into learning some lessons about what holds us together when our grills and fenders fall apart. I'm on my way to be with her. We won't let this beclamity toss her off the face of the earth. I'm feeling a bit like a turtle right now.

horse slaughter camp

It might have been more like eight hundred horses that Colonel Wright ordered killed.

The Palouse Chiefs were fearful that their horses were at risk and so they had driven them deep into the ravines near present day Spokane, causing such a cloud of dust that the pursuing army was able to follow the cloud to the horses, trapped between river and steep mountain grade.

It was a crime on the frontier to kill a horse, but this being war—killing eight hundred horses was considered fair. At first, to save ammunition the colts were led to a nearby gravel bar and knocked in the head. The brood mares whined all night from losing their colts. This process was taking too much time; a bullet aimed behind the ear, into the brain proved most effective.

The Palouses told their children and grandchildren and in turn, their children and grandchildren were told about these horses. These horses were the best of their breed at the time and only in more recent decades has the breed become strong in numbers again. Almost fifty years earlier, Meriwether Lewis wrote about this new breed of horse called the Nez Perce horse, a blend of appaloosa and a Central Asian war horse known as akhal-teke. Lewis wrote, “This breed is young, but everything is going good so far."

I visited the Appaloosa Museum's website and learned that a horse returning to camp without its rider often would have a bloody handprint on its neck. Fingers pointing down warned of grave danger. A handprint on the horse's rump, fingers pointing up, spoke of victory instead.

There are many planned events this year to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Mullan Road. I wondered what had become of the bodies of these horses, so I visited the Spokane Outdoors website. Horse Slaughter Camp, with its monument, is a few miles east of Spokane, Washington near the Washington/Idaho Stateline.

Straight from Spokane Outdoors Information Center:

“Ignore the small print on the bottom of the monument regarding moving of the monument since that relates to when the monument was moved to the Weigh Station. It has now been moved back to the original position and when they dug the pit for cementing the monument in they hit bones that looked like horse bones.”

And then there is this:

Cautions: Watch the traffic around the State Line exit as it is weird.

three sisters and a church

Another photo from my father. This is what he calls a stitched photo. The setting is real, but it requires two photos to take in the width and depth of the landscape. The title is his, the photos are his, and the man to the right is his brother.

I don't want to muddy up the sensation this photo offers, so all I'll say right now is thanks, Dad and hey, Uncle Pat.

show of hands

seven hundred horses

The Mullan Road was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the Inland Northwest. Courtesy of my father, this is a recent photo of this wagon trail. I thought I'd share the photo with you. Fascinating, isn't it, to sense the wagons on this trail. I also thought to research the construction of this road. What was going on in the late 1850s, anyway?

Prior to the road, travel between Washington and Oregon and Montana was extreme. A small town in Montana, Benton (Ft. Benton) was the beginning and the end of steamboat travel on the Missouri River.

An accounting by Philip Ritz, urging the construction of this wagon road:

"There is another reason why the Mullan road should be opened. There are on this northern coast hundreds of persons and small families who would like to make a visit to the Atlantic States, but the expenses and the dangers of the trip via the Isthmus are so great that it has kept them from visiting their old homes on “the other side.” But let this road be opened so that four or six persons, or a small family, can take a light wagon, with their blankets and provisions, drawn by a span of ponies that will keep fat on the wild grass, and they can make decidedly a pleasure trip of it, hunting and fishing all the way to the steamboat landing at Benton. Then expenses from Walla Walla to Benton will be what their provisions cost them – six or seven dollars to the person, and about seven dollars, all told, for ferriages. My expenses on the route for ferriages was $2.25.

Wagons and teams would be worth nearly as much at Benton as they cost here. A great many passengers went down on the steamboats for from $10 to $40 this season. The Deer Lodge made the trip from Benton to St. Louis in 13 days and 15 hours, and back to Benton in 36 days and 21 hours. The time to Omaha, where cars could be taken to all parts of the United States, would be considerably less. This route only needs to be known to become the most popular one on the continent."

But then there are matters I cannot imagine. For example: the matter of the seven hundred horses. Journal entries regarding the casualties as civilization worked and fought its way across the Rockies include this:

"The army's respite was brief. Eager to teach the Indians a lesson, Wright pursued a scorched-earth policy, burning caches of Indian food in the Spokane Valley: camas, dried berries, and wheat. Then the soldiers encountered another form of booty. In his account, Capt. Erasmus D. Keyes, one of Wright's officers, reported, in the distance "[we saw] many moving specks, which were horses, mares, and colts." The army pursued the herd, managed to capture roughly seven hundred of the animals, then considered what to do with them.



Keyes advised Wright to slaughter them, telling him, "I should not sleep so long as they remained alive, as I regarded them the main dependence and most prized of all the possessions of the Indians." The colonel then passed the decision on to a board of officers with Keyes as president. The officers decided to allow the "friendly Indians" in their company to each keep one or two of the horses. Then the soldiers built a high enclosure. "The poor animals [were] driven in, and the work of shooting commenced. The soldiers soon learned that by planting a bullet just behind the ears the animals would drop dead at once."


The killing went on for two days, until 690 horses lay dead. Keyes, who had been so adamant for the slaughter, was affected. "It was a cruel sight," he wrote. . . Soon afterwards the soldiers crossed the Spokane River and entered "a rich agricultural country, where we found many rude huts and numerous stacks of wheat. The dragoons all fed their horses with wheat, and each carried away one or two sheaves. The large balance we burned, so that desolation marked our tracks." Without conscious irony, Keyes wrote of the Spokane crossing, "Ours was the first civilized army that ever passed that stream."

bird traps and smoked ham

The butcher knows I will ask for ground beef wrapped in 1/3 pound packages. When I approach the meat counter with my cart he raises his brow as if to ask how many. Depending on the price of beef, I might raise two or four fingers. We don't have to talk.

Irish oatmeal recently moved up a shelf, but otherwise I am able to move through the grocery store on auto-pilot which was nice this morning because my mind was elsewhere. (I know . . . how is this anything new, Sherry?)

Someone had sent a Harry Crews video clip my way last night, so it was on my mind instead of buying groceries. Sure, if you are from the south (which I am not) it main't be new to you, but maybe you'll watch the video anyway. Towards the end, we learn about a bird trap constructed from tobacco stakes. Bird seed is scattered around the base of the trap; because the trap is not flush to the ground, birds can stroll into the trap and finish the bird seed inside. But then what happens? The birds try to fly away. The trap is shaped like a pyramid and so they cannot escape that'a way.

But really, they can still get out. They aren't officially trapped. All they have to do is remember how they got there in the first place:  turn and walk out just the way they came in. But they don't do that. The sensation of feeling trapped takes over and all they can do is act on instinct. Fly fly fly.

So I am thinking of this while deciding which carton of eggs to buy. Cage free? Right. But while I am opening the cartons and kinda mourning over the amount of cholesterol in each brown egg, a man nearby clears his throat.

"Excuse me," he says. He's wearing a clean but faded plaid shirt and his hands are about ten years younger than my father's hands. I've never seen my father's hands on a grocery cart, yet this man reminds me a bit of him.

He wants to know if I can help. This could be a family joke, really, because I am known to be unworthy in a kitchen, but I walk over to him all the same. I might know something that could help him and I'm hoping he is going to ask where the Irish Oatmeal is, but instead he shows me two packages of lunch meat. One says "Cooked Ham" and the other says "Smoked Ham". Does this mean, he wonders, the smoked ham has to be cooked before he eats it? I take both packages in hand, read the labels as though I am unsure and then give them back to him, explaining that both packages can be eaten right away. His smile broadcasts his pain and he explains this is the first time he's ever done his own shopping. The Mrs. always knew which package to buy, not him.

We aren't in Costco where the sparrows live in the rafters and swoop down into the empty aisles to score on a stray kernel of dog food, or a crushed pretzel near the garbage cans, but still I feel the rapid wing-beat. I know what trap feels like with its dumb panic. The sensation and the fear that we might not have what it will take to get out of here, to survive.

I want to reassure this man that he will get through this, but I can't think of what to say that wouldn't be condescending. Anyone who has known me these past years knows I am still learning to remember how to turn and walk away.

the high horse and the back-up pony

A few weeks ago, I traded my pony for funds to help me purchase the Tugboat Book. At the time, I was reminded pioneer women never give up their ponies. My reply? It was my back-up pony I traded. Not to worry, I keep my original pony at all costs. (No photos, please.)

Funds were handed over to Amazon. Book was handed over to UPS. UPS showed up the day I was leaving town. I weighed the book, wondering if perhaps I could afford to fly with a sixteen-pound book in my carry-on. I left it home and had a wonderful time away from the book, knowing it would be on my nightstand when I returned home.

In telling a friend about this dream-come-true book (you may need to click on the "Tugboat Book" link up above if you are still fuzzy about why this is a dream-come-true for me), I was scolded about never getting off my high horse. Why hadn't I let him know I wanted this book, that I wanted to be a tugboat pilot, that I wanted wanted wanted. I was just to say the word and as a friend, he would help me. I wouldn't have had to trade my back-up pony for the $2.32 I was short in purchasing the book if I would have talked to him first.

So now, I am short a back-up pony, but I am off my high-horse. I own my own Tugboat Book and have learned a lasting lesson. If we care about our friends, then we must open up enough so they may help us as we seek help. It's all about bonding, I am told.

I am not sure if I've learned the entire lesson, though. I can be a bit hardheaded. I think I may ask for more bonding and for a trip to Nova Scotia where the becalming waters can be fully experienced under the tug of four knots.

(*becalming* is the new word I've learned since this book has come into my life.)

wing windows

That Stretch Between Stanford and Eddie's Corner

We climb back inside the '66 Electra of seafoam

green with bench seats and wing windows
cranked open in the heat. We cruise past

barley and hay, barley and alfalfa. How far
can we see, how far can we see nothing,
I ask. Fifty or sixty, my sister replies, just

as we drive by the one thing there is

to see, a birdhouse nailed

to a gnarled fence post, we can see for fifty or sixty lives.

Where would the bird have come from that might be

in that house? Our brother is quiet when he responds—

he'll think on this once we get back to town.

stack 121

In a previous life, as a poverty-level college student, I was a federal employee charged with the duties

of filing documents relating to the water sheds in this region. The filing system didn't exactly look like this,

but my attitude after a year of said-documenting and filing did look a bit like this:

(War Department records stored in the garage of the White House

prior to the construction of the  National Archives Building.)

And this? If you visit the National Archives website 

you will learn as I did what a  state of disrepair looks like.

To be honest with you, by the time I reached this next photo,

I had forgotten what had brought me to this website.

Here, we have the laying of the cornerstone for the National Archives Building in DC.

In this cornerstone are a Bible, two copies of the Declaration of Independence,

a copy of the Constitution, an American flag from 1933 and more.

What *more* would you have put into a cornerstone, given the opportunity?

In this photo, see the men? This room was later divided into three levels,

each level being seven feet high. Each stack of documents placed randomly.

Where would Stack 121 be found?

My favorite photo~

By 1938:  370,000 feet of motion pictures.

What do you suppose is being done here?

Document-flattening.

i say forty she says twenty-six

I was her back-up cargo carrier. Extra water and a cooler with orange segments and pb sandwiches. If you could peer into the bottom of the basket, you'd see a back-up book of poetry, for in case I found a hammock along the way.

Art can be and is

anywhere.

Always, with a rock.

And another . . .

The double-knot shot

So I got a bit carried away watching for Betsy to catch up with me. . .

I missed her.

aiming for the snow cap

When we were in high school together, she could say "just one more drink" or "one more piece of fudge" and I couldn't think of why to disagree.  Yesterday, she was saying, "one more mile."

Over our adult years, she had become a marathon runner for fun while I was taking to the world of words. Yesterday, while visiting Mile High Country,  I went with her as she trained for the Pittsburgh Marathon four weeks away.  My thoughts were that she would run and I would ride her mountain bike. Her thoughts were that I could ride up ahead, turn around, come back to her and then ride ahead again. (Do the math: 26 miles x 3).

My thoughts were that I'd stop and smell high altitude roses.

between the falls and the quarry

This is what I'm thinking about today. Another photo from my father. Now, I need to write the story of this boxcar and the mind that figured out its foundation. Was it out of neccessity, or out of fun? Was the boxcar placed on the foundation, or was it built on afterwards? Where did the rock come from? How many pickup loads?

how we carry on

Eastern Montana starkness. Her older sisters were at a finishing school, but she preferred the ranch life with her older brother. He was his father's top hand, but she was just a bit of this and too much of that. Didn't fit in where she was supposed to. Finishing school was in her horizon, but she was not about to be shipped off to boarding school to learn to speak French and serve dinner for a party of eight.

She liked to write and draw. Paper was scarce, but she was clever. She hoarded it and made the most of each sheet. When she heard the grand prize in a writing contest was a car, she spent every midnight moment writing her story. Maybe if she could prove her worth by winning a car, she'd be allowed to stay on the ranch.

What might the story have been? Decades later when she showed me this photo, she could no longer remember what she had written that won the car, but she remembers how the contest had tricked her.

What happened after that, Gramma?

She practiced vaulting onto the back of her father's horses so she could prove to him she would make a worthy ranch hand. Broke her nose once in practice. Broke her nose a second time, bringing in a stray calf strapped across her saddle. Horse slid down the creek's embankment just as her nose met the skull of the calf. Horse brought her home unconscious. 

Will

She drew on end pages torn
from her father’s books. Charcoal shading,
thick-penciled lines of a tired horse,
someone’s roper boots. Rugs on a clothesline,
bloody feathers on a block. She pressed
these papers between chapters
of Mathew, Mark and Luke, learning
to ride bareback instead of attending school.
Sixty years later, Will was born,
her ninth great-grandson and I named him
from my heart. At his baptism, she placed
her Bible in my hands, told me about her
sketches, about a brother I never knew she had:

I was twelve when he rode out,
looking for a stray. Found his body
in a coulee between Salt Creek and Battle Bay,
a boot caught in a stirrup. We beat the rugs,
dug up beets, killed chickens for his wake.
Life must go on my father said, so I rode
my brother's horse, did his work, and learned
to carry on. Not until you named your son,
have I said my brother’s name.

to the white-haired lady hiking alkali creek trail

I envied you

saw you walking
saw you stop

where the path curls
up and over water

you sat down

a measure of grace
a bit of pain

you pulled a letter out

I watched you read
from the canyon's corner

the way you folded
and stretched out

you taught me ease
in surrender

for two cups you definitely need more water

In a few weeks it will be my turn to fix a meal for twelve people. I've begged off from this before. Anyone who has eaten at my house would agree Sherry should not do the cooking. It was my sister who earned the nickname, “Crisco”, not me. I was caught up in conjugating German verbs and building fences for a soil conservation project when Mom was teaching in the kitchen. Who knew so many years later, I'd still be asking Mom “Do I boil the water first?”

Yesterday she sent me an Easter card with four or five Recipes Even Sherry Can Fix for this upcoming meal. I love Mom. All the possibilities that I feel in the world of poetry, my mother finds in recipes. And look closely at these photos, you'll see she's remembered to add advice and nuturing for the only child of hers who is kitchen challenged. Reading her extra advice in these recipes makes me feel capable and loved. She knew just what to write to encourage me:

A few years ago our family of seventeen spent some days at my home, celebrating our parents' 50th anniversary. Time was spent converting water volleyball to water ballet volleyball (a new rule was invented that only a well extended foot/leg could be used to advance the beach ball in the pool); playing rounds of Hearts in the shelter of two locust trees and teaching the youngest kids the various ways one might adapt the rules without being accused of out-and-out cheating. Whatever one might call this desire to alter the rules a wee bit is found in the way Mom cooks.

In preparing for the Anniversary Get Together, we had heard Mom scored on getting the original Borries recipe for its famed spaghetti. Borries was the locally famous cafe in Black Eagle, an Italian mining community on the abandoned edge of town, right before you found the Missouri River and followed it five miles to reach our house. What did you leave behind once you left home for good? Any place like Borries?

On Mom's day to cook (two brothers and two nephews also took turns sponsoring meals) she and I drove to the grocery store. Mom pulled out a ratty recipe card. Oh my gawd, there was the answer to the mystery behind Borries spaghetti. I navigated the cart and peered over Mom's shoulder. Ah! Two pounds of 93% ground beef. But Mom stopped at the butcher's counter and asked for a pound of seasoned sausage. “I know the recipe calls for beef, but I like to punch it up with sausage.”

When we reached the tomato sauce aisle, what do you suppose?

“I know the recipe calls for stewed tomatoes, but I like to use tomato paste.” Instead of onion, an extra clove of garlic. And add a bit of brown sugar and a bullion cube.

By the time we had packed our groceries home, I realized a few things: Mom is more Irish than the rest of us with her lust for punching up a story (and when I say story I mean recipe); learning to be a good cook starts with shopping for groceries; and allowing oneself to embellish here and there, now and then, calls for a sort of courage. Whether we punch things up when we write or cook or paint our front door red, adding on new rules to the way we live life shouldn't be a genetic trait.