Like a shiny coin lying in the dirt, a fine powder of dust the only thing dimming its newness.

Like a fragile newborn anything.

Like the promise of future sex or the smell of dinner cooking or the hump-day hope for a weekend of rest or fun.

Like a pregnancy or a hot air balloon ride.

Like waking up slowly and realizing that not only is the warmth beside you someone you completely adore but that it has snowed overnight and you don't have to go to work and that you…

Just a collection of cells, arranged into a pinhead body with eight legs, that got trapped in the dry white bathtub, doomed to be crushed in a tissue and flushed away because culture deems the collection scary or creepy (probably because our cells are only arranged into four appendages).

Just a collection of cells, arranged into green leaves that wilt in hot butter, and we add garlic and lemon juice, more collections of cells to feed our own.

Just a collection of cells,…

The evening  started off warm, a predictable and comfortable group of friends surprisingly spiced by new faces, six degrees of separation heating the whole night to a slow simmer and finally a full rolling boil until we cooled back off around midnight on the dark slick streets of gay goodbyes.

A puddle of butter and wine sauce in an empty mussel shell, a laughing sip of someone's crazy drink, a waitress who made exactly the right joke, a private conversation with heads bent together…

It's 8 gallons for every flush so you walk outside to pee, put our cribbage game on hold--that's just what we do, pee outside--because we can, no neighbors for miles and miles--and like I said, 8 gallons for every flush.

And you shout over your shoulder, "These planets out here are spinning around!"

And I yell back from inside, "Is that a commentary on how much you've had to drink???"

But I walk outside onto the stoop anyway, and sure enough, there they are,…

She needs, oh how she needs, but she can't tell me what it is exactly that she needs, this beautiful woman who paces and paces and has restless fingers and constantly seeking eyes.

She has been to the window five or six times this morning, looking out as if the glass were barred, imagining that she can fly like the white-crowned sparrows, and yet she always turns back with a sigh and a need... for something.

She has unconscious curves that serve her like less elegant ones serve…

Slam! me with an e-mail with photos of a bloodied and tortured Christ, and I when politely ask to be removed from your "forwards" list, you send a "I'll believe my way and you believe yours" snippet, leaving me saying, "Uh.  Yeah, that's what I wanted..."

Slam! me with a handwritten letter in the mail from my mother's best friend (I am sure I am on the prayer list) and when I reply with a sweet bread-and-butter note back because I have loved them both my whole life, nothing,…

The little speckled hen takes the day off, hides her egg inside because her favorite laying spot is six inches deep with snow.

The little black dog is scared of the snow shovel, but damn, he wants to help, bouncing on the sides of the path, doing his own digging with quick looks to see if anyone notices.

The red horse looks accusingly up at the glowing house as dusk approachs until he hears the door slam; then he runs to get the top pecking order slot in front of the hay room…

It is hard to walk in ten inches of snow and the terrain is both more mysterious and less. 

We know what is moving and in what direction, but I did wonder, as I was making the bed, what creature walked from under the big cedar tree outside the window, over to the wall of the house, and back to beneath the boughs. 

Sounds carry across the frozen white.

Yesterday I found a purple arrowhead, one that I could not have found today.

This storm means water running over…

I am an old man, smoking, with my back to the women's cook fires.

Little boys with their arms full of wood run past, laughing, deaf to "hurry, hurry."

What do they know of storms.

My daughter's daughter smiles shyly as she passes by, her belly swollen with summer's hot nights.

Most of the village have already put their heavy cloaks at the bottom of their sleeping mats, but I pull mine close about my shoulders since I know how Old Woman Winter must make one more…

for Lady Gita who reminded me that I work at growing food for a hungry nation... and why...

It is the smells that make me pause, you know, the brown and red and green all mixed up together:  alfalfa and dirt and manure and blood and woodsmoke that heats the irons and then burns the hair and hide... the worst thing that will ever happen to them under our care... and sweat and tired and horse piss.

We didn't brand the four smallest calves today, and they lay in…

He does his own laundry, picks up his own socks, makes his side of the bed when we rise, tries to give me the largest helping of mac and cheese even though I know he loves it.

He balances his own books, pays his own bills, reads his own mail, notices and comments when I clean out the toothbrush mug, scrubbing the inside where the scum builds up.

He sweeps the floor while I build salads, leaving off the croutons and dressing because he prefers to do his own toppings though he…

Before yesterday I would have said that I don't get lonely, not in the traditional "need companionship" sense, but like I said, that was before yesterday.

I drove 250 miles (not lonely), followed my google map to the fourth floor, rooftop level of a parking garage (not lonely), and added my warm body to the reported 100,000 bodies to be welcomed to the enormous Festival of Books where I wandered for two and a half hours and ate a carton of noodles (not lonely). 

I picked up…

To say that "his nose is broken" would not be doing the months-ago crushed cartilage and rainbow of claw mark scars justice, or his wheezing, labored breathing and failure to thrive.

Yesterday I saw a painting of a mountain lion and assured the artist, who was curious about the expression on my face, that he was indeed spectacular, majestic, haunting, wildish, captivating, framed in gold and placed upon a stand in the back of the booth.

And yes, I would even have…

I know that this is longer than six.  It would NOT confine itself to six sentences, but it is going in the new book and I so much wanted to share it with you and get some input.  Am I forgiven??  ---  A

When I was a child, my father bought a blue and silver Chevy Suburban--drafty, unpadded, cavernous--perfect for four growing unbuckled kids.

On Tuesday nights we would drive a long way from town to a Bible study and on the way home, not only did the dark make it…