whereabouts and wanderlust

Whereabouts and Wanderlust

traveled hand in hand.

Each one loved the other most

and trekked then many lands.

Altogether they were happy

blue eyes and blue.

Sleeping children brought them flowers,

with love, from me to you.

a light dark poem – a rewrite

Sweet sweet engine of mercy,
bright flying speck in the sun,
tomorrow I’ll be riding a donkey,
tomorrow I’ll be on my way home.

We will go to the invisible carnival.
We will ride the invisible rides.
We will not stand in line
we will have a great time
as we flash our bright wings in the sun.

I will buy you lavender ice cream
I will throw the poor doggie a bone
you will shoot out the eyes of the targets
and win us a free ticket home.

Sweet sweet engine of mercy,
bright flying speck in the sun,
tomorrow I’ll be riding a donkey,
tomorrow I’ll be on my way home.

But, what if some darkthing I see?
And what if it whispers my name?
And if the darkling should take me?
So seeing you never shall be?
Well, then the gathering light,
the gathering light,
the gathering light
shall have me…

obama’s speech

Transcript
Barack Obama’s Speech on Race

Published: March 18, 2008

The following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign.

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

border studies – undocumented aliens

Back in Montezuma, N.M. after 10 days on the road with 18 UWC-USA students, faculty chaperones, and Broadus, 8.5 years, a great traveler, interested in everything. In place of a Spring Break, students at UWC elect a service-learning adventure. This one was to study border issues, especially as they pertain to Mexican illegal immigration. We worked with community and human rights groups – faith based and otherwise – working along the US-Mexican border.

Humane Borders and No Mas Muertes put out markers and water in the Arizona desert for the migrants trying to cross over. The Border Patrol, and the Arizona state and county governments, as well as all mainstream denominations support their efforts, financially and otherwise, hoping to avoid a much larger humanitarian crisis along the border. There have been 1600 migrant deaths in the fifty miles of Arizona desert between Tuscan and Nogales since 2005. The work of Humane Borders is to prevent as many deaths as they can with the resources they have.

We camped out on a lot of church floors on both sides of the border. No county morgue trip this year but we did visit the federal courthouse, the Border Patrol Museum and talked with members of the Border Patrol. We visited a Mexican orphanage and C.R.E.E.D.A., an amazing addict-run treatment center for Mexican alcoholics and addicts, some of them former coyotes. The students carried out a number of tasks and chores at all of these locations. They also staffed a center for deported migrants returning from the US.

Many of the migrants are from southern Mexico, many from other Central American countries. The migrants have to be wary of the coyotes they hire to take them across the border and fifty miles of desert on the US side. The majority of women taken through the desert are raped either by their coyotes or by bands of robbers the coyote is in league with who wait in the desert. If the migrants are apprehended and deported, in Mexican border towns they are easy prey to predators waiting to take advantage of their ignorance. The Migrant Centers work to shield and counsel returnees.

I’ll be sorting out my own views of the issues in the days to come but I can say now that my sympathy is with the underdog. It isn’t that complicated a question. All it would take to resolve the problem humanely would be some genuine concern from the governments of the US and of Mexico for the well-being of its citizens.

Thanks to all who have left comments while I have been away! I’ll be posting responses and photos as I recenter here in NM.

hello from phoenix, oops, i mean tucson

I am traveling with 20 uwc-usa students (from 10 countries!) and faculty on a border studies trip and will be away for another 6 – 7 days. Hope to post along the way but internet is sketchy as we go back and forth across the border. Yesterday we took the students to the federal courthouse to see undocumented aliens chained together 50 at a time and collectively sentenced. We also met with the director of Humane Borders, the people who put water in the Arizona desert for the migrants trying to cross. So far, 1600 bodies of men, women and children have been retrieved from the Arizona desert since 2003.

We have been visiting with reps. of faith-based as well as human rights groups mobilized around border issues on both sides of the border. We will head back into Mexico later today.

……………

Stopping in Bisbee for lunch now.  What an interesting looking town.  Built around the copper mines, now  touristy but  beautiful.

portrait of Nanda

a dark light poem

Mud and bone and fire and water,
blood and ice and cloud and slaughter,
bloody, holy, hallowed ground,
bloody, empty, silent sound.

The ash upon the embers,
the fire within the cloud,
the sound seeking hearing,
the truth seeking sound.

Shining face upon the pillow,
little, limber, sleeping willow.
Sleeping deeply we recall.
Sleeping deeply we remember.

work in progress 1 poem or 2?

1.

Sweet sweet engine of mercy,
bright flying speck in the sun,
tomorrow I’ll be riding a donkey,
tomorrow I’ll be on my way home.

Ah! The invisible carnival ride,
I’m standing in line to climb on.
Twirling and spinning on bright wings,
Look out! Here we come!

2.

Mud and bone and fire and water,
blood and ice and cloud and slaughter.
Bloody, holy, hallowed ground
bloody, empty, silent sound.

Shining face upon the pillow,
little limber, sleeping willow.
Sleeping deeply we recall,
sleeping deeply we remember.

The ash upon the embers,
the fire within the cloud,
the sound seeking hearing,
the truth seeking sound.

friends

make the law dance – the new mexico PeaceWorks conference

Make the law dance and the people will love it. Today the NMPWC ends.

New Mexico PeaceWorks

Conference

creating a better world through social justice
http://www.uwc-usa.org/cec/peace.htm

 

 

 

Sponsored By United World College-USA, Monte Del Sol Charter School, Santa Fe School for the Arts and Sciences, College of Santa Fe, and Grassroots Leadership
There were 200 high school age students from across the state, 45 UWC-USA students, representing 30 -35 different countries, a number of educators from around the state. Workshops were facilitated by experienced grass-roots activists and community organizers as well as by organizers working on a national scale. Ocean Robbins, founder of Y.E.S. was the featured speaker and a brilliant and funny person he is. The students and the rest of us hopefully still growing learners loved him.

Yesterday afternoon during “open time” I helped facilitate a small group meeting. This particular self-selected small group of 14 kids, gathered to discuss the topic of “kindness”. After much discussion they decided to go to the old downtown Santa Fe plaza and give away hugs, flowers, balloons and candy. They (and half the Plaza) were glowing when the afternoon was over. I’ll post pictures later.

It looks like snow this afternoon. Make the law dance.

desolation, hope, and more hope

new mexico peace works conference

This is the conference Naomi is organizing in Santa Fe this weekend. Fun and educational. Anybody in the area please come! (And please introduce yourself!) Details here:

http://www.uwc-usa.org/cec/peace.htm

Sponsored By United World College-USA, Monte Del Sol Charter School, Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences, College of Santa Fe, and Grassroots Leadership

 

New Mexico
Peace Works
Conference

creating a better world through social justice

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29 – SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2008
MONTE DEL SOL SCHOOL, SANTA FE, NM

(click here for directions!)

ADMISSION $10 • COVERS ALL EVENTS INCLUDING BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER

GROUP DISCOUNTS AT LOCAL HOTELS

thoughts on the novels, “the road”, and “blindness”

Only a great kaleidoscope

can break the cold gray stone

that forms in the bottom of the heart

when we consider the way

that we treat each other

and make it beautiful.

she sits upon a windowsill (revision)

She sits upon a windowsill
and spies a laughing boy, about eleven,
walking barefoot by the water’s edge
beneath the tree’s green reaching hands.
The canopy throws its color down
and lights the shadows with reflections,
the subtle ocher, umber, rose and violet
rustles over every edge and surface,
every fractal point and pinion.
The locomotion of the whole shebang,
the cosmic engine, mind machine
turning banking, sliding through
a water droplet caught within
a blade of grass curled between
two fingers. He sees all this
and more, there beside the running
river flowing like a dream thru
his attention. His attention is a moving
thing, like he is, and he’s a roving, freckled,
happy sunburn, loopy, careless
and so fetching.

She watches from
her windowsill and notes the romp
and listens to the forest talk,
the chittering of birds and squirrels,
the sounds of things that root and snuffle.
She notes the hiding place of perch and trout,
beefy bullfrog, quiet mouse
and sees the drop of water falling from his fingers.
She hears the plip of water merging once again
with water, the satisfying ripple of the river
growing greater as it lightly shakes with power.
The animals of tree and branch, the things
that root and snorkel through the grass and thatch
grow quiet as the moss upon the granite.

She’s something special, also freckled,
quiet as a dream of looking up through sunshine
held in water. Sister to the winds she snaps her fingers
and they come. They are old familiars,
first responders, her edgy, banshee sisters.
And she is wind in human form, the fourth wind,
now a zephyr, now a storm. They come from
their oblivion, trailing dust of days and nights,
shedding plastic bags and awesome fragments
of collected sounds.

The trees above the river rattle,
reaching for the windy ceiling.
The sisters whip the air and beat it
with their silver bones. They lace it
with their stolen tones.
They forget where they’ve just been,
where they have been collecting things,
they forget the rusty underpinnings
where no bottom is, no edge, no roof, no ceiling.
They’ve just left the place that holds
the sucking sounds, the shrieking, lurching,
hideous foreknowing, the wide eyed, lunatic,
brokenhearted howling where forgetting
has no ending, where no mind is the state of being.
The sisters visit there where they can merge
and circulate until she calls. And she does call,
because she can, and brings them to her,
and brings them back to knowing.

They play the boy’s hair now,
mess with his rock throwing,
his skipping stones,
his tight, zinging, side-arm action.
One last time he plows a stone
across the water. Then he turns
and runs across the lapping river’s edge
until he’s lost in dappled wind and shadow.
There are footprints fading in the sand
and on the bank the grass is springing back.
It’s warm here in the sun, she thinks,
and calls a wind to bring the last wet stone.

Ivan Gold

I am in Boston this weekend to say goodbye to an old friend. Here is the death notice, which appeared today in the Boston Globe

Ivan Gold
Of Boston, formerly of New York City on December 23, 2007, writer, teacher, and drunk, sober 31 years. Loving father of Ian Gold and his wife Maria Cisterna Gold of Dorchester. Doting grandfather of Gabriela Gold and Ruby Gold. A widower, was a devoted husband to Vera Gold. Survived by his sister, Judith Stitzel, of West Virginia. Sponsor and friend to many in AA. Family and friends are invited to a memorial service at the First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough St., Boston, on Saturday, February 23rd at 1:00 p.m. Donations in his memory may be made to The Writers’ Room of Boston, 111 State Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02109.

here is an excerpt from an email I wrote tonight –

…We are snowed in. Ivan’s service is tomorrow at 1 pm in Boston. Should be able to get there. Don’t know what I’ll say yet. He loved me, made me feel okay, valued, esteemed. Made me feel loved. Opened his life and his family to me. Showed me how to live. How to do the right thing. What the right thing might be. How to examine my motives and to own up to doing the wrong thing. How to love a son. How to love a family, how to be part of one. How to want to be part of one. How to do the best one could with what one had. How to work and go on working. How to love and go on loving. How to suffer through heartache and keep going. How to start over with broken tools. What else is there to teach? What else is there to learn? He showed me that this was learning that would take a lifetime. And that if we died sober, died still trying to do the right thing, we won…

ann’s calf (for ann bunting mock)

I found this calf in Merida, in the mountains of western Venezuela. The painting began as a scumble of color on a tinted and sanded 2′ x 4′ masonite panel. Then I stalled out. I had earlier painted a series of paintings of cows – cows posed in the field, like paintings of thoroughbred horses, so a friend (Paul Hartley) suggested I put a cow in the painting. I did so and the wondered what to do next. Paul asked me why I needed to do anything else and I knew I was listening to the right person. Below is a close-up of the calf. Later, Ann Bunting-Mock fell in love with it and so it naturally went to her.

electric cow (barbeque)

she sits upon a windowsill- (work in process)

She sits upon on a windowsill

and spies a laughing boy, about eleven,

walking barefoot down the river’s edge

beneath the tree’s green reaching hands.

The canopy throws its color down

and lights the shadows with reflections,

the subtle ocher, umber, rose

and violet rustle over every edge and

surface, every fractal point and pinion.

The locomotion of the whole

shebang, the cosmic engine, mindless

machine, turning, banking, sliding

through a water drop caught within a

blade of grass curled between two fingers:

he sees all this, and the running river,

lets the whole thing go, all those colors

running back to multiverse, to trees and leaves,

reflections, shadows, rock and stone

and cloud and water. She watches

from her windowsill. She snaps her fingers.

Lo, the wind comes. The low moaning wind,

the whistling wind, the shrieking wind. Her edgy

banshee sisters back from night, oblivion,

plastic trash bags in their hair, construction debris, dust

of old mornings, whistling and moaning

from the walls and props and underpinnings of the world.

Not even the winds look down from below,

where no bottom is, where no there is, where

there are just the thrice damned, shrieking,

and the sucking sounds, the lurching, the hideous foreknowing…

…and you wanted to write a simple poem,

about a boy and a girl beside the river…

on a subway under boston

on a subway
under Boston
sat a kid in a ratty hat
with his finger in his nose

by the window
dressed in velvet
sat a girl from the Mississippi
and she squished
when she walked
cause her shoes were full of tears

and the kid fished out a marble
from a pocket
of his baggy pants
and he looked up
and he saw the girl so he fished around for two.

and he found lotsa garbage
in the pockets of his baggy pants
all sortsa things
he’d forgotten
had found their way there.

there were pumpkins
and grapefruit
and a couple of shiny hooks
blue horses
the ocean
and a starfish or two

there was seaweed
there were mountains
a tornado only slightly used
brass buttons and goblins
and snakes enough for two

three chuckles
some giggles
a box full of silly talk
a small book of drawings
and a left handed shoe

from the shoe
dropped a marble
blue and green and purple
and he grabbed it
and he gave it to the girl

and she looked up
from her squishy shoes
with eyes full of thank yous
and she said
thanks a lot
but it’s got boogers on it.

on a subway under Boston
sat a kid in a ratty hat
and beside him under Boston
a little girl with wrinkled toes.

i was born in a hearse

I was born in a hearse,
I carry my curse,
from midnight to midnight,
searching by lamplight,
for someone to find me,
a hand that can guide me,
through the streets that hide me,
from midnight to midnight.

Devil Woman

Praise

I found this canvas in a thrift shop and recycled it. The bright colors are showing through from the original thrift shop painting. I drizzled roofing tar on the canvas and then brought out some of the images which were suggested in the texture. The next day the aluminum particles in the tar had risen to the surface and the images were obliterated. I tried to force the drying but the images kept disappearing. I finally used a barrier coat of clear shellac to seal and stabilize the tar and went in on top of that with metallic oils to bring the images out again.

Slow, swollen, unattractive

Slow, swollen, unattractive,

difficult to work with,

dead.

Your husband cried when we told him.

overpainting

or, how to ruin a perfectly good painting? I am better about knowing when to stop but still sometimes overpaint one. This is one I liked very much as a charcoal and acrylic sketch. Here are some pics of the work in progress. My new friend, Luigina Ware, posts her work in progress, an idea I like so I’ll try it here. I like the energy and enigma of my original sketch, which I lost as I proceeded. I also removed work lines which were better life alone. I think I’ll put it away for awhile, let it rest and come back to it later. The problem is, they call, and it’s hard to ignore the call. Like this blog calls.

…in the beginning

I am beginning to torture the painting on the left

close-up

of a beautiful ruin…

which is turning into an interesting piece. I just hate taking one too far and not being able to get back to that thing I liked in the first place. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It comes with the territory. Sometimes we push them too far.

completed work/works in process

A recently completed portrait of Beethoven as a young man. The painting was commissioned by Ron Maltais, the Music Director here at UWC-USA, in exchange for piano lessons for my son, Broadus. I worked from a photo of an old oil painting Ron gave me as a reference. The image I produced felt too stark but when I aged and sanded the canvas it fell into place.

These figures are part of a work in progress I cut from 1/8″ steel yesterday. The images are based on children’s drawings for war-torn countries. Pictures of similar completed works are posted on rickmobbs.com.

Once a week Chris Thompson , in Ribera, NM, makes his blacksmithing shop available to the UWC-USA students and John Geffroy and I are lucky enough to be able to work with them. Next week I’ll take some photos of the shop and post them here.

I felt your imprint

your imprint detached itself from the great cloud, giving up

forgetfulness and unknowing, taking up memory and knowledge,

wearing once again the clown suit, cheering me from my great longing,

pushing me back from the edge of the hollowed out place

where the tangled mess of old toys, broken screen doors,

rusted refrigerators and old tricycles waited.

The spring craves water

The spring craves water.
Is, does, always will.
A hammer is something else when it’s not being used.
Any tool can tell you
something is lost when it’s not being used.
My dog cries when she gets left behind.
Some of the kids do, too.
It’s really no wonder your hands are so soft,
you don’t use them much either.

a candle breaks the nighttime

A candle breaks the nighttime,
the seconds sputter past.
Christina hums the blues
to make the seconds last.
Her anything but joyful days
recall her own beginnings.
Her candlesong is one of praise
for all that’s left of living.

Maybe it wasn’t some great or tragic flaw

Maybe it wasn’t some great or tragic flaw.
It could have been just an occurrence
happening like a watchspring
come unsprung and deciding to dance.

Power comes from, rests and abides
with the old rotten Stonehenge figures
and grandfathers. You hear me say I love you
and any question of death rests
with the other laterlater thoughts.
Because it won’t, will it?
Happen here? It can’t, not yet.

Oh, there’s more of the pretty due us first.
We’ve been too long making do and hurting.
We’ve much more of the pretty due.
Past due. Pity us. Pretty us.

dream images

There is a man in a cage, you can see his hands.
A tower holds the cage, the sun burns above.
The sun wears a face. The face doesn’t smile.
Below, a ruined wall runs to both horizons,
its stones are scattered, nothing lives.
Mountains like teeth ring the distance.
They have no color, no depth, no life.
There are caves in the mountains.
There are bones in the caves.
The bones have been forgotten.
There is a man in a cage.
You can see his hands,
hear his sweat.
The sun doesn’t smile.
Neither does the man.
The man hasn’t forgotten.
Neither has the sun.

Flying things wheel
between the man
and the sun.

the daughter

we crossed your love with my desire
i spun my faith through your fire
and yours spun through my water.
in the hills her soul found ours,
her voice was mist and trills.
we knew her by her laughter.

oops!

lost it! I don’t think this poem was meant to be posted.

tell us a story!!

I had reservations about the poem I matched with the painting here and so took it down. So, in the spirit of collaboration, if you, or you and your kids, or your kids, or anyone else would like to offer poems, captions or stories to accompany this picture I will submit them to the committee (Broadus and Naomi) and we will publish them here.

selfish lizard- twice resurrected poem of the day

Here is a little darkling of a poem that has been rattling around my brainpan. I’ll try to make something a little more upbeat for my next post. The image I have paired here is the 3rd panel in a 30′ triptych. It started as a 30′ x 7′ painting, which became overwhelming. After several artist friends suggested I cut it into workable sections I finally cut it into 3 parts. Even as sections they are too big for most houses. I would like to find a home for them though. As to what this image has to do with a selfish lizard I can’t say. It is an image that jumped out at me as I was scrolling through possibilities to mate with the poem.

selfish lizard

1.

I can’t feel your pain, assuage your guilt, dissolve your fears,
kiss away, or wipe away, or even touch your tears.
My selfish chameleon perches upon a staff
(the ivory stars hum, the universe revolves around lizard
things) inlaid, yes, and yes, inlaid with meaningless tokens.

2.

Because my own fear haunts me. It propels me away from kindness.
I go to the desert and find a tatooed stick bearing my name.
It writhes burning red and black tiger stripes shaped like a man.
It twists where there is no wind. I make my wishes simple and plain.

3.

Why not? I can’t hear you crying. They beat you and starve you
and yet you forgive them. Only in my dreams am I destitute.
Only in my dreams am I wronged or harmed. You actually burn.

4.

The world is crisscrossed with your love. You are the holy one.
I should be ashamed. I try to cry but no water comes.

5.

Whither thou goest, I shall go also? Your name is older than mine,
my name is learning. My name is drawn to the hole in the sun
that drinks up the rain. Teach me, then, take my hand.

soup-kitchen witch (today’s poem is a painting)

Oh, where did that voice go? Where did I put it?

there is an old man
in a gutter
and he calls his
voice his daughter
and he sings –

come to me, girl,
come to me, girl,
I miss you so badly
I feel so lonely
come to me, please,
come home, please,
won’t you
come home, please
I’m lost here
without you…

And the trees sing
every evening
but the old man
can’t hear them
because he’s
not listening,
no, he’s
not listening…

why you drink so much baby?

Why you drink so much baby?
You make people worry,
alla time damn you fuck and fight
an you drink too much baby.

Sometime he love you baby.
Hanging all damn time on the wall
arms pinned, headache
feet hurt
too damn high
an wondering god damn when it gonna end?

Two thousand years they hide
a piece of him in Istanbul.
Constantine did it
an he comin back to get it.
Cause he love you baby.

Recipe for Moonlight (Dance of the Lizard King)

rework rework rework rework rework rework rework rework rework

Necklace by Broadus

Broadus with necklace he made today from yarn and found and carved sticks. Works in progress in background. There is a thin line between finishing a painting and torturing it.

Dreamtime

(from a dream I had the night before an art opening. I used it as my artist’s statement.)

I asked the man who stood beside the child and held her hand, what he called her. Both of them were muffled in canvas clothing; rough, shapeless clothing worn to soft and muted earth tones. He seemed to be wearing what had been a military uniform, one fit to blend him into a summer forest in a temperate zone. And temperate and mild he had become, it seemed to me, even as the uniform he wore had lost its strength of color so that he now stood out like a pillar in this winter forest, among these bare trees. I wondered if there had been something of that mildness in him all along, even in the days of carrying a rifle up and down the mountains.

“I call her, Found along the long march home, with winter in her eyes,” he answered.

Somehow I knew that neither of them sensed a threat in me. I knelt and took the girl’s hand, her left hand, and held it between mine. Her hand was cold, so cold!

“Do you want to go home?” I asked her.

She was small, barely half his size, if that. She was bundled in scraps of canvas rudely sewn together with bits of string and soft wire. She wore a rope, worn and silky, as a tie around her waist. A hat made of bird wings and moss covered her head and trailed down her neck. I looked into her eyes and immediately wished I had not. I have never seen such eyes! The crystal clear cornea was a liquid skin stretched across a place where weight meant nothing, time meant nothing, and the something that was there was as far away as the moon. In her eyes floated everything – earth, moon, trees, even this man beside her, and me.

She turned her head slightly to look at her friend. As she shifted her gaze snow flurries rose from the bottoms of her eyes the same way they do in side a glass sphere containing a winter scene. I could see the snow drifting in liquid suspension and I wondered if perhaps I had stumbled upon the spirit of winter.

“Sweetheart,” I said to her and she shifted her eyes back to me. “Are you cold?”

She shook her head.

“Are you warm?”

Again she shook her head.

I released her hand and it rested in the air for a moment before she raised it to the man who had named her, Found. There was a spot of color in her palm and he cradled her hand in her own and began to rub the color in. A blush of rose appeared and spread to her limbs, her face, her cheeks and the silent woods echoed with the sound of a beating heart coming back to life. Her tears came then and spilled from her eyes, instead of into them.

I was mesmerized. I don’t know how long he rubbed that spot of color in her palm, or how long she wept. The man thanked me and said he would take her home now. She was sobbing and clutching at his coat. He lifted her into his arms and she threw hers around his neck. Her tears darkened the collar of his old, worn overcoat. He adjusted her weight and as he was turning to go back up the mountain in search of the road home, he saw me staring at my hand in disbelief.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s a gift.”