Place
I have been in this place before, in spirit if not in form. Perhaps I have been beneath white pine towers, the lowest limbs high overhead and an interwoven parquet of needles below. Only prickles of remote sunlight penetrate the branches to the ground and, without underbrush, the forest opens to gray vista and silence. ...
Romancing the Light
Nancy and I drive in her truck down Hardscrabble Road to Hollis Barrens. The sun casts an orangey-blue light as it sinks behind the adolescent mountains of western Maine as if it lives there. Along the road the foliage glows chartreuse, a heavenly illumination that makes you wish you were a landscape painter. This will...
High Country
This Idaho high country stunts most growth. Just outside the town of Salmon, buds of lupine and paintbrush, penstemon and pines, even the paddling mallard ducks grow tiny. Late in May, songbirds have yet to lay their eggs and winds still agitate Williams Lake — harsh habitat for creatures that adapt and even thrive. Trout...
Leopard, Snowflake, Blanket, Marble, Frost
I think of the Nez Perce, called “Pierced Noses” by French Canadian trappers, who saw some of the tribespeople wearing in their nostrils small, single dentalium shells, traded from Vancouver Island. The Nez Perce were the most skillful horse breeders among North American Indian peoples. I am drawn to their jewel, the appaloosa. Developed in...
Swimming with the Bull
It was midday when we topped the last rise on the trail with our noses aimed at the blue coolness of Moose Lake. Rane and I looked out over the small body of water and spotted the racks of a bull moose ten yards out from the near shore. “Is he eating?” Rane whispered, nudging...
Postcard from the Phoenix Zoo
Ruby, the elephant, must have spent much of her time studying that cluster of boulders — a formation the color of pottery before it is fired, a formation known to us as the Papagos — beyond the bars of reinforced steel that surround her. The abundance of red on her canvas testifies to this. Often...
Wildlife in Los Angeles: A Phone Call
“How are you?“ “Tired. I didn’t sleep at all last night.” “Because . . .” “It’s a really long story. . .” “Yes. . .” “Well, the tenants have mice. So my neighbor and I went out and finally found live traps. They were expensive but. . .” “And you trapped the mice.” “Well, we got one. We brought...
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