The day before I joined avocets, phalaropes and winnowing snipe on Mono's north shore. Piles of papers wait impatiently while I count the clouds, take Mono's pulse and align myself with the changing seasons. I'm a newsletter refugee. Today, instead of writing about lawsuits, I ambled to the summit of the ridge behind Lee Vining. From a small patch of tundra where horned larks nest, the world drops into water and space.
Mono Lake sprawls across the landscape like a giant ameba.
These ramblings connect my work to the land. Sometimes I'm led to epiphanies, but more often to questions and insights which are not always simple or comfortable. Looking down on Mono's cerulean waters, I think of burgeoning cities at the other end of the aqueduct. I think of a civilization estranged from the earth that sustains it. I think of the fate of birds, flowers and children when the ozone layer is gone, the rains stop falling, and the bombs do.