The Narrative Image

A plaintive yodel emerges from static on the radio as my car crests another hill. I think it could be Hank Williams and marvel that a human voice in a scratchy recording can cross time, defy death, and thereby interact with the living. I snatch snippets of song from the static like moments of sunlight streaming through the dappled shade of an immense oak. The road descends into a valley and the static roars and the strident condemnation of some holy faker (adopting the cadences of a Martin Luther King speech) overwhelms simple beauty with bankrupt religiosity (apparently content doesn’t matter as long as it’s punctuated with plenty of ‘Jesuses). I punch the console and switch to one of only two CDs I find in the newspaper, maps and camping miscellaneously slowly growing in the unoccupied passenger seat. Regina Spektor sings: “He stumbled into faith and thought, ‘God, this is all there is?’” This lyric out of context launches a cascade of fledgling responses. He stumbled into ...

Driving east of Pasco A cold wind blows – buffets the car like a boxer - seemingly inhospitable Migrating bushes recklessly play chicken with cars – end up as grill decorations - gather together at barbed wire fences - share tales of their exploits The land ripples and undulates as if it were water Postulate God. Does God watch the continents flow like we watch streams in the sand? Second-hand topsoil – courtesy of Montana? Silt and dust blown across half a continent and some significant portion of an epoch Palouse Falls State Park - Washington Mindlessly following gravity’s imperative, water probes faults and chips away at basalt barriers. On one hand friendly and supportive of life, water is three faced and fickle and remains god’s tool of choice for wiping the earth clean of humanity – though fire is certainly in the running. Magnificent floods spawned by an ice-age lake helped scour out this canyon to reveal early flows of lava – rivers of once...