On the Richard Record

I love the calm days, seldom showing themselves, that turn mudflats into mirrors and life seems to explode with even more beauty. I love the Lupines that loop around sand dunes where Savannah Sparrows sing and Willows wedge through swaths of Sweet Gale to establish a spot in botanical history. I love prints that know nothing of time, for they will soon be erased when the moon melts salty seas over clam shell-peppered mud. I love seeing the gap between Kayak and Wingham very slowly ebb and flow with each footstep towards success. I love hearing the Gulf of Alaska growl as it thrusts energy onto the driftwood-littered beaches of Kanak, leaving memories on a beach that borders a place they say has none.  I love seeing snow, of the Goose variety, sail across peaks and tornado down to tidal flats where they landed last spring.  I love the miles of mountains that are absorbed by a layer of clouds, hiding a world of anything above 1,000 feet.  I love the waterfowl that find them...

  I walk down a cobblestone avenue where there are no street signs Instead there are bursting willow buds and green grass sprouts, piercing a layer of beat-down brown that, for months, sat beneath a heap of sparkling snow There are no curbs, only piles of drowned driftwood that dislodged some time and distance ago Awakening along the avenue are singing song sparrows, tedious trumpeter swans and boastful black bears The cobblestone wasn’t precisely placed as perfect pavers either It was strewn about by a rushing river that started miles away at a gouging glacier, geologically paving this cobblestone conglomeration