I Climb, I Backtrack. I Float. I

I Believe In Kindness. Also In Mischief. Also In Singing, Especially When Singing Is Not Necessarily Prescribed.

Do You Love This World? Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life? Do You Adore The Green Grass, With Its Terror Beneath? Do You Also Hurry, Half-dressed And Barefoot, Into The Garden, And Softly, And Exclaiming Of Their Dearness, Fill Your Arms With The White And Pink Flowers, With Their Honeyed Heaviness, Their Lush Trembling, Their Eagerness To Be Wild And Perfect For A Moment, Before They Are Nothing, Forever?

Music: What So Many Sentences Aspire To Be.

Tom Dancer’s Gift Of A Whitebark Pine Cone You Never Know What Opportunity Is Going To Travel To You, Or Through You. Once A Friend Gave Me A Small Pine Cone- One Of A Few He Found In The Scat Of A Grizzly In Utah Maybe, Or Wyoming. I Took It Home And Did What I Supposed He Was Sure I Would Do- I Ate It, Thinking How It Had Traveled Through That Rough And Holy Body. It Was Crisp And Sweet. It Was Almost A Prayer Without Words. My Gratitude, Tom Dancer, For This Gift Of The World I Adore So Much And Want To Belong To. And Thank You Too, Great Bear

But The Owls Themselves Are Not Hard To Find, Silent And On The Wing, With Their Ear Tufts Flat Against Their Heads As They Fly And Their Huge Wings Alternately Gliding And Flapping As They Maneuver Through The Trees. Athena's Owl Of Wisdom And Merlin's Companion, Archimedes, Were Screech Owls Surely, Not This Bird With The Glassy Gaze, Restless On The Bough, Nothing But Blood On Its Mind.