Mel and I arrived in Kansas just ahead of a thunderstorm that had been on the old Dodge’s tail since we left Colorado. Bones and Michael were scurrying around collecting things that were about to blow away, but Tiny the Wolf Hound was right there at our feet – protector, friend and greeting committee all…

I once boarded a train on a night like this – the wind a lion, the air a knife, the new moon a whisper. The train whistle was the song of my wanderlust, the hard push of steel on steel was the sound of a dream of a life that hadn’t happened yet. Up and…

There’s nothing as fierce as January, once she puts her mind to it. Blizzard force winds and the sky clear as ice, the air rich with coconut and tundra, salt spray and glaciers, sea foam and month-old ice pack. The wolf sleeps in the open, needs only the shelter given by the shape of the…

After my spiritual encounter with small flock of Snow Geese last week, I called the Nature Center to ask about how they fit into the general waterfowl population of our area. A couple of days later the state biologist gave me a call. Turns out he’s a former neighbor and Earhart parent whom I haven’t…

You must gather up what falls but leave what falls behind. Fruit and time are old friends, they tag-team the sun for our delight. Savor me now, fruit says, and in return I will nourish your grandchildren. Time, being gender fluid, is a bit more cautious; they understand that you might have some life-changing event…

My grandson lives just a couple of blocks from a walkway over the main highway through town, U.S. Route 54. I drug him from his video game to walk over the bridge with me, trading my solitude in the golf course for loud traffic and a small child spinning in a forward direction for two…

There were signs before. It started decades ago, in the volatile years, the wild dancing, the breakfasts at dawn, the years where we were both just cutting loose, not searching for anything in particular, tied to the pursuit and little else. Then the pursuit was over and family happened, marriages, kids – two girls for…

What stars there are huddle in the middle of the sky, aloof and maybe afraid of the city lights, they push through still because the moon has abandoned them, the clouds have abandoned them, the people, warm in their houses, have abandoned them. Like us, they each have a name, a story, a backstory, the…

My daily life is about to change for the next three months as the Legislature convenes next Monday and I resume a semi-solitary existence. Will I write more? Organize the garage? Catalog the stars in the night sky? Pile walnut and hackberry deadfall in my fire pit on still, quiet nights in this small Midwestern…

At the beginning of my walk, I set my pace by inhaling slowly for four steps, then exhaling slowly for the next four steps. That gets everything in sync. After a bit, I slip into my natural gait, which is two and two. Coming back home, like a old horse in a rush to return…