A Little Rock
2014
A rock on the ground, next to the rock a tree, on the tree is a bird, its feathers like the river...
Calling Gadahlski
2014
Gadahlski refers to the garage door of the house I grew up in. The house was a modern rambler sitting on a hill in the pristine, well-educated community of St. Anthony Park. My parents, my sister, and I did whatever we could to fit into the mold of “the Park.” The house expressed this desire for perfection with its regularly mowed lawn, clipped hedges, and fresh paint. Even the flower and vegetable gardens were neat and orderly.
March
2014
It hadn’t occurred to me until someone at work brought it to my attention that this winter has been going on for eleven years. I said, “That can’t be. Surely not.” But then I got thinking about it. It was eleven years ago November we moved into this house. You remember, snow was just beginning and we had so much trouble getting the refrigerator down the driveway and through the door.
Art by Bob Muschewske
True Myth
By Heid E. Erdrich ● 2014
Tell a child she is composed of parts (her Ojibway quarters, her German half-heart) she’ll find the existence of harpies easy to swallow. Storybook children never come close to her mix, but manticores make great uncles...
Saint Paul’s Big River Journey
2013
Each fall and spring since 1996 we’ve loaded students aboard one of the Padelford Packet boats at Harriet Island. Their mission is to learn about how they are connected to this amazing body of water. The joint project between the Padelford Company, the DNR, and the Science Museum of Minnesota is called the Big River Journey. Six times a day we squeeze fifteen to twenty fifth and sixth graders into the wheelhouse to talk about the school subjects that help a person become a riverboat pilot. Anyone who thinks smaller classroom size has no impact on the quality of education can come spend a day of Big River Journey with me.
Purgatory, or Riding the Bus Home from School
2013
There is no seat you want to sit in, no place that you belong, so you choose one near the middle, closer to the back than the front, one with a kid in it, wearing a faded jean jacket and striped watch cap. A skinny kid who stares at his hands, lying in his lap. His fingers are slender, stunning—and you are ashamed that you notice.
Avian Celebrities on Como Lake
2011
We were halfway around Como Lake when I heard it—the long mournful three-tone whistle-cry that grew in volume. I stopped. What is that? What is that? I know that sound. But it was utterly out of context, and I had to think to place it. The bird called again. I stopped Doug and made him take out his earbuds. (He was listening to American Music Club on his iPod.) Doug, I hear a loon!
Early Spring
2011
Pale vision on an early day: two gray wings gliding flat balance on the body’s straight line. A trill rises from the meadow....
November
By Diane Wilson ● 2010
I raise my baton, a rake, a half-chewed stick: dry leaves crackle, snap tympani for the horn toot of geese flying south.
The Bird Man of Dunn Brothers
2009
The first time I met the Bird Man at Dunn Brothers about three years ago, he introduced himself as Mark, but he added that if I wanted to, I could call him Smooth. I wondered why Mark, somewhere in his forties, with a daily scruff, a casual concern for his hairstyle, and an everyday outfit of jeans with a workman's jacket, was called Smooth.