Now on the Dark Mountain Blog

Very excited and honored to be included in the Dark Mountain Blog. See my work here, and please go on to read the high quality writing they are constantly posting:

Analogous Structures

dispatches from nowhere #5

In This World

In this world, the tiniest life creates you. In tireless work microbes construct you beneath the soil, this quiet and appropriate place to conceive a being. You won’t remember this, but it is how it happens. Above ground, the others are stalking the forest, retrieving their loneliness, their grief. Meanwhile, your pale and riven face is composing itself in the darkness.

When it’s time the others unearth you.  They brush the soil from your vestments, your eyelids, which have yet to open. The hum in your nerves is still incoherent, still dispersed. The microbes that will be you are still grieving as they put you together.

The others carry you to the house, lay you in the bed. It is here you come awake, your eyes fluttering open, a rattle in your throat. Your family is all around, the pain dissolving from their faces as you come into the world.

Lullaby for Namu

Technocracy

I used to have these fights with my old friend Steve Jobs . . . I’d say to him, Steve, these computers you’re inventing here, they’re destroying the world!  . . . it was like telling a Catholic that there’s no God.

- Doug Tompkins

            I must confess: I am writing on a computer. And I use a computer often, more often than I’m comfortable with. For writing. For composing and recording music. For connecting with friends and family across the world. For taking in music and writing and film and art. For learning, and sharing ideas, philosophies, and knowledge.

            All these pursuits seem worthy, don’t they? They seem to be valid reasons to use technology. So why do I feel I must confess to using it?

Recent Recording: Banks of the Ohio

dispatches from nowhere #4

Dearest                              

The snow shows no sign of abating. It has been four days since the start of the storm, when we were forced inside. At times we have entertained the thought of going on. Alex is the one to check the weather, but it has not changed in all this time and when he digs out the door the wind sweeps in, so we limit his excursions.

The igloo has been a boon – we would be gone already if we had had to rely on the tents. Still it is like a cell now. Only a vague blue light comes through the ice during the day, then fades to utter darkness. There is not much difference one moment to another. I find myself wishing time would hasten on, but to what? Only some relief from this cold.

~

I can write again because we have warmed ourselves around the stove. But that will be short-lived. There is only enough fuel for a few more meals. If the storm breaks before then, perhaps we can go on. Frustrating to be so close, 11 miles to the depot. But impossible in this weather.

~

The storm continues. The fuel is nearly gone. I can feel my blood slowing. All the others sit still muffled shrouded. Sometimes they move but so little. I wish to tell you something but I don’t know what. It is so strange to think how this note will be found. In our frozen cave. In my still hand. I will have departed. Dear dear heart. Please go on. I think of you in the sunlight. I can see it in my mind but I can’t feel it.

~

The wind sings and speaks. I wish I could write its meaning but words come slow. I failed you. For that I’m sorry. So many regrets in my heart. But I would have been a different man if I didn’t come here. Not me.

~

I dreamt I was walking to see you. I left the others, went on to the depot. A feeling like setting out, all the excitement and fear, something new ahead.