Tag: Stories Emerge Like Bears
-
Halleluijah in a Northern Wisconsin Bar
Various renditions of every song are worth listening to. Some renditions move beyond our recognition, yet if we appreciate music and musicians, we can find something to enjoy. And some songs are nearly sacramental with ineffable or opaque elements that strongly affect the listener. Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluijah” is one of those songs; it’s not just…
-
Blue and Broken in the Keweenaw
-
A Dust Bath for Five Chickens: satisfaction in small things
I’m in Wisconsin, helping my daughter with a small chicken project. Her five chickens needed a bin in the coop to take their dust baths. So we gathered a couple of old vegetable beds and transferred the soil into sheltered boxes where they could scratch, roll, and clean their feathers. Building a dust bath for…
-
Nothing Is Forced into Action Except the Old Boat Motor
At the cabin, stories rise the way ghosts do. Nobody can produce them on demand. They are, like the Dylan lyric about sons and daughters, “beyond our command.” They flash across consciousness, drift back into the trees, return when they are ready. This is why I come again to Big Casey Lake, to the Old-Style…