Friday, March 21, 2008

Dry Land


The levees are breaking, the poorest sections of town are flooding; they plan on opening the dam to finish off what nature started and hopefully save the best of the rest. We've heard it all before - but this time it is Poplar Bluff. Only twenty miles and a childhood away. - North

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Clay Pots

The roads are idled by the flash of rain and mud. Fields swell as the Mississippi nears its crest. The creeks and streams are gone; simply replaced - as an opportunist overcoming a past lover.

I meander the drips from nirvana… that sudden distribution, like spills from a great ocean over my slight neighboring deltas. The water rapids against my feet. Leaving nothing but air for safety.

If buried here… by water and mire and silt and extravagance. The parts and shards will wash under the soil, abandoned amongst the repentant. - North

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Who Owns a Credo?

"It is so much easier to live placidly and complacently. Of course, to live placidly and complacently is not to live at all...." - Jack London


Friday, March 14, 2008

More Mayes and Immersion Travel

My old friend, Gaelon, refers to Under the Tuscan Sun as his fudge book. Its richness and beauty best consumed in small morsels. He doles it out to his acquaintances in much the same way… offering them passages from Frances Mayes’ book here or there for comfort and consumption.

I have read and reread this travel tome that doesn’t really involve much travel… I dare say it falls under the label of Immersion Travel. I’m reading it again, for the imagery of spring in the midst of our own strange winter. I’m reading it for the endless paragraphs describing crisp-smelling cuisine that is at once both a thousand years old and as original as if it were freshly picked from the neighboring hills and groves that very morning; for the universal truths intended for an Italian love affair but resonating across rivers, streams, endless ponds of water and an ocean of pavement and trees; until it even reaches west and south into the depths of my current swollen flooded bottomlands along the great muddy river:

"This isn’t real; we’ve wandered into a Fellini film," I say.
Ed shakes his head. "Fellini is a documentary filmmaker – I’ve lost my belief in his genius. There are Fellini scenes everywhere." – Frances Mayes

Recognizing genius in the lives of others is effortless; however, admitting to it is often complicated by the decisions we’ve made in our own lives. - North

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Lingering thoughts northwest of Libby


Always the Yaak - despite your clear cuts and wind swept cancer from downriver.

Yaak... Still my favorite place. - North

Saturday, March 01, 2008

We haven't located us yet.

Yesterday, I watched the film "Darjeeling Limited" a movie about life and death without actually being about life and death. I believe it is Wes Anderson's best work, yet. For those that have already seen it, you'll recognize the above quote. - North


"Above and Below the Winter Fields"