Friday, June 15, 2018

Back from the Wallowas

The morning opens slowly, cautiously. A gray milk sky softly addressing the skylights; a breeze making the outer scraps of the hedge tremble. Rain is being thought of.

Back from the Wallowas, from that strange country of the conquest. Extraordinarily beautiful, but the proportions are beyond human. I wondered what houses cost over there, but I haven't even looked it up: I doubt I could live with that immensity, day to day, set against the tantrums and waywardness of human beings. The contrast would be a continual fret. And of course, living anywhere but the city, you would live there only to watch it being ruined. No. I'll stay here in the Valley where I was born.

You can't really photograph the open hills, and you can't run through them the way you'd want to. You'd need to be an antelope to live there properly.

So I watch the ferns under the hedge shift and nod in the morning light. This is a good place. A human-scale place.

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