Somehow, in the next passage of light, I will shed reptilian skin and feel the wind’s friction again. Sparks will fly. It’s a hope for the right kind of fear, the kind that does not turn away. A few miles short of Wisdom, Montana, I flipped open my sleeping bag at the top of Lost Trail Pass. Starlight prickled my shoulders with cold’s tattoo. At midnight there, August meant less than altitude. A long day’s winding drive from La Grande had left me numb with the car’s buzz, and abrupt dark silence was impossible to believe. But the tall stems of the trees made no sound. My ears were clouded with engine throb and tire whine. The whisper of stars I thought I heard was only a tune my head-bone played. Where I slid into the thin summer bag, I felt a bump of rock dent the small of my back. Sleep blurred my eyes, but I begged the rock to keep me wakeful. Tomorrow, I would drive down a valley that had burned my imagination, a place early trappers called The Big Hole. Tomorrow, Wisdom.
What do You think about Having Everything Right (2016)?
