Field Notes #12: Who Has Seen the Wind? (Pt.3) by Patricia Karamesines

This is the third part of a three-part entry. To read part one, go here. To read part two, go here.

Glancing at Belle, I can tell she needs water, and soon. I lead her away from the beaver ponds before she’s tempted beyond her ability to resist to drink from its giardia-laced teapots. I hurry her to the shade of a big juniper, another of my stops, and sit down in the dirt beneath a broken branch that hangs across the trail. Obviously, Belle needs more water than I can provide by cupping my hand. I relent and pour her a drink in the canteen lid. She laps four or five lids full then lies down in the shade without my prompting, her shoulder pressing against my knee. She pants rapidly but seems to have gotten enough to drink, refusing another offered lid.

Looking around inside the juniper’s shadow, I notice a single penstemon blossom, looking like a wind sock on a pole, glowing red against the litter. Its color leaps to the eye from a backdrop of live blue-green and dead brown juniper stubble; last year’s curled, tawny oak leaves; green wisps of grass growing in a clump; spider webs clouded with dirt and other debris; and round, purplish-blue juniper berries dropped into grey-toned soil speckled with blacker grains, probably of decayed organic material. From somewhere up-canyon, a canyon wren’s laugh pipes its downward-falling scale.

Advertisement

WIZ announcements, perhaps of interest

WIZ readers and writers: Remember that the deadline for Torrey House Press’s Creative Literary Nonfiction Contest (2,000-10,000 words) is midnight, September 30th.   First Prize: $1000.   Second Prize: $250.   Third Prize: $100.   There’s a $25 entry fee.

Torrey House is offering a special arrangement for entrants who can present “reasonable evidence” that they’ve bought Torrey House’s first novel publication, Crooked Creek. For more information about this special arrangement and for the competition in general, go here.   For those of you who don’t know, frequent WIZ contributor Steve Peck will also be releasing a novel through Torrey House Press in October.   Look for an excerpt to be published here on WIZ.

Also, Peculiar Page’s landmark poetry anthology Fire in the Pasture has announced a release date of October 1st.   It’s available for pre-ordering NOW!   This is an exciting and, really, quite astounding project.   I’m very pleased to say that many WIZ contributors make a showing in this important anthology (including me–what an honor!).   To view Fire in the Pasture’s product page and to pre-order your copy, go here.   You can also read Peculiar Page’s Theric’s triumphant promotional post about Fire in the Pasture here.

Also, I’ll be making a brief show of poetry in an anthology titled Vintage: A Harvest of Poems from Fortunate Childe Publications.   Carla Martin-Wood, another frequent contributor to WIZ, is one of the beating hearts of Fortunate Childe Publications.   If I remember correctly, most of the poems I’ll have in this anthology were published on WIZ.   Delightfully prolific poet Karen Kelsay will also be making an appearance therein.

Finally, occasional WIZ contributor Val K. has had her essay published first on WIZ, “Our Very Own Toad Hall,” accepted into the first   issue of Desert Voices, a regional anthology published by the Moab Poets and Writers’ group.   Congratulations, Val K.!   Your mother would be proud.