from MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL: MARCH 26, 1999

You cannot be a bystander,

can you? You cannot simply be an observer. My notion that the writer is "witness," not "participant," that notion must crumble as the rhythms of life and the world pull us in and make us part of something larger. It is not enough only to "see," one must also "be." Be here fully, be part of it, take hold of it, ride it, drive it, herd it, chase it.

Cripes! Starts to sound like a beer commercial.

Yesterday was the first grey day since our return from Montana. The Confederate. Today came in bright and blue like a Union solider. You are glad to be here. Huzzah, huzzah. We are promised warm temperatures today and tomorrow.

It was cool enough during the night, however, to put a layer of frost on the windshield of the pick-up. Even so, it will be near fifty degrees today, up to fifty-five degrees tomorrow. Who is to complain? The sunlight clings to everything.

There is still snow on the empty lot north of Cozy Inn downtown. The village has piled up snow there over the winter, to get it off the streets, and it has not yet melted. By noon, a river shall run from it again.

Out in the country, moisture is coming up out of the earth. The fields have dark spots of wetness. Now is when the earth heaves stones from deep within itself to the surface. The ground is thawing.

A green bottle glints in the ditch - much of it is still hidden in its brown paper bag.

Here and there, in ditch and lawn, an insistence of green pushes through, despite frost in the shaded areas.