I still don't know if this is the sort of thread for this forum, but since a few of you have asked, I'll post this latest of my ramblings.

It certainly is not pertainent to Y2K, who was right or who was wrong, but maybe it'll be worth wasting a few minutes.

In the tradition of the old TB2000 forum, some snapshots from the road:

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Leon Junction, TX

White dust of limestone mingles with the leaf mold of live oaks. The hilltop circle beckons with summer breezes and lingering necklace of Indian blanket red-and-yellow. The two friends stroll the evening and are drawn imperceptibly to the ring of trees. Their footsteps are as gentle as their natures, and fall soft among the ancient campfires and broken flint points of those who before, have passed this way.

A flying shadow brushes their legs and stirs the dry leaves. Go Jake; run on boy!

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Lincoln County, NM

The mesas are grizzled with

small cedars

And jut their unshaven chins out

into the valleys

of long-ago rivers

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Santa Fe, NM

He showed me how to spin a top. And spent one whole weekend, home from college, to teach me long division.

I learned to drive behind the wheel of his old car. He bought me new clothes for school, and paid for the fillings in my teeth.

We visited day before yesterday. He was having stomach pain; rare for such a health nut.

He called today. I sat on a hot picnic table and listened to the calmness in his voice. The tests were back. Cancer, lymphatic, intestine and liver.

How long? How long? How long?

Maybe a year, maybe the summer.

We stayed all night on the lake once, fishing and talking, as men-boys will. We had cheese crackers for breakfast. And when the sun finally rose beyond the mist and the flooded forest of old gray trees, we were the only ones in the world. My older brother and me.

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Cumbres and Toltec Railroad, Chama, NM

The greasy black coal-smoke is as tenacious as the narrow rails that cling to the brows of the cliff. It swarms into you hair, and resides briefly in your ears.Then settles upon your shoulders like the embrace of an old friend.

Kit and I take turns sneezing and laughing. I tell him of the far vistas his eyes cant see. His touch tells me of an timelessness I can only glimpse.

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Navaho Nation, NM

Little boxes, our gifts to the People squat beside the highway

red-brown dusty

Cloudy eyes are shut tight to the desert gift, and the sun shines

red-brown dusty.

Doors fade in struggle against the gift of the rock and the wind blows

red-brown dusty.

No grass here; shade, no gift of trees, but among the

motor-bikes and broken toys, the smiling children.

Gift of the People

red-brown dusty.

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Shiprock, NM

Water in those days had the Spirit of the Coyote. Cruel trickster, it took away the mountains, and turned their bones to red dust. It fell and danced, surged and sang and leapt. And when it was done, the rock stood alone.

Longing for the Mesa, for the embrace of kindred stones, the intimacy of remembered soil, it has only the subsidy of wind, the corruption of light, to send its shadows searching across the dispassionate landscape.

Each dawn and each dusk, the light makes gossimer sail; the wind pushes ghost-shades out on their eternal search for peaks and canyons of bygone recollection. And in eons counted as seconds, the phantasm, the great two-masted schooner, is drawn grain by grain, to its inevitable reunion with the long-ago mountains resting beneath the waves of sage.

Or so it seems to the watcher from the road. As the same light and the same wind, send my shadow too, upon its chimeric voyage.

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Taos, NM

She looked like one of those sweet girls from the 60's. No curl in her long brown hair. No bra under her soft flannel shirt. And, most importantly, her jeans were baggie in all the places they should have been tight.

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Seventeen beautiful and bittersweet days. As Kits eyesight gets weaker, his spirit gets more vivid. We stumbled around high forest trails and ancient Anasazi ruins, clinging ever more fervently to each other; he in response to a growing darkness, me, in response to sudden recognition of mortality.

I wish for you such beautiful days. Make them with your kids, or your loved ones, or even make them among strangers. Make them on the road, or in the backyard. But make them soon. And look for me and Kit.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), June 27, 2000

Answers

Beautiful and moving. Thanks.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), June 27, 2000.

Oh sure. Pop in, drag our consciousnesses kicking & screaming up a few rungs and pop off again. Thanks a bunch.

Really. Thanks Lon. Now get back to work.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 27, 2000.

As Lars said, beautiful and moving.

And well put Bingo.

Thanks, Lon.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), June 27, 2000.

Can't say it any better than Lars and Bingo have.....thanks, Lon. It's an amazing perspective; one I sorely needed at the exact moment I read this.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), June 27, 2000.

Hey, this was cool.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), June 27, 2000.

I'm very pleased that you liked these. Here's a couple more:

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LOST MAPLES CANYON, TX

-

The land here is basic. It appeals to me. Rocks and water and sky.

The walls of the canyon are sheer. Purple and grey-brown. Cut through by the deceptive trickle of the Sabinal.

Rough old cedars and pin oaks cling among the rocks on the rim and down the crumbling shoulders. Wayward maples drop their leaves into the crystal riffles.

Soil is born here, where roots gnaw the granite, and limestone dissolves in the rain of eons. It rests like black snow drifts in the lee of stream side boulders, or gathers itself up in roots of grasses taking advantage of last seasons bounty. It doesnt get comfortable. It is a gift of the river, and the river is fickle. Soon the water will regret its gift to the canyon and rise up to take it back and give it to the farms down below the escarpment.

But today, the Green Kingfisher watches for the tiny fry in a calm pool, and the Canyon Towhee flits among the orange berries of the agarita.

I stand ankle deep in blue sky-water and my bones whisper to me of their kinship to the soil, and of their resting place in the pecan bottoms below the escarpment. A pebble moves in the currents beside me, and continues its imperceptible journey down the canyon. Then it finds its grasp, and holds. And waits for me.

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A malingering cool wind came in from the west last evening. It hit the great wet clouds from the warm gulf, lingering just there, past the cypress and salt grass, and their struggle lit the darkening. Lit the darkening. Lit the darkening.

The rain on the tin roof of the little bayou shack played a Wagnerian accompaniment to the dark Valkyries come to claim the forgotten ghosts of moss shrouded boneyards. Of moss shrouded boneyards. Of moss shrouded boneyards.

And I, at dawn, walked out into air from the far mountain homelands of the Ancient Ones. The faint smells of pinon pine and sage lingered in my imagination beside honeysuckle and swamp lilac. I closed my eyes and breathed in memories of high meadows and painted canyons. And the shadows where my soul was formed in another time. In another time. In another time.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), June 28, 2000.

Lon,

This work is Most Excellent!!!

You do paint such a vivid picture,kudos!

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 28, 2000.

Beautiful Lon. Thank you.

-- Debra (specialpost@from.you), June 28, 2000.

This morn I break my fast

upon Lon's rich repast

My soul sits satiated

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 28, 2000.

Lon has mentioned in the past that he is not interested in writng a book. That's a shame as he's a helluva good writer.

How 'bout it, Lon? I'm sure you have a rather large and growing collection of writings, so why not submit these to a publisher and at least hear what they have to say? It really is great stuff.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), June 28, 2000.

CD,

You actually have made me start to think about it. If I could find a publisher who would be willing to work with me and show me the ropes, maybe it would work. I could envision a little book of loosely tied writings, interspersed with photographs.

But I have always written for enjoyment (and lately the enjoyment of sharing with my friends on the net), but Im not sure if I would have the discipline to really write something substantial.

However, I am flattered by the thought of a legacy as enduring as a book, and by your kind encouragement. But the fact is, I just dont know where to start.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), June 28, 2000.

(you guys have no one to blame but yurselves, for encouraging me)

Here's another one I dug out of the past:

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An old watch on a flea market table. An inscription, from her to him.

It says HAMILTON in neat small letters across it's face. The minutes are numbered, one to sixty. The second hand has a precise slow sweep. I chose it for it's plainess, the style of unencumbered simplicity. Gold and glass and white face.

I wonder if she chose it for it's style, or because it's plainess carried a plainer price.

It didn't really matter, he must have been proud of it; showed it to everyone that day; opened the back to reveal LANCASTER, PA 21 JEWELS. And all the little gears and engraved whorls.

The gears of the steam engine which took him away, and the whirlwinds of the plains. To carry in his pocket and to remind him of home, and her.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), June 28, 2000.

Lon-- Very nice-- kinda like a mental massage! My brother just had his 3rd kidney transplant yesterday and is doing well. Your writings brought tears to my eyes when I think about your brother . I wish him the best. If our love for them was enough, they would never suffer again.

-- Dory (crtwhhel@eburg.com), June 29, 2000.

Thanks much, Dory----It's amazing how many emails and such I have recieved since I posted these threads. Despite the trials of our little community, there are really great people here and on the other TB2K forums.

My brother is taking an alternative medicine called MGN-3, and has a fighting attitude. We think he just might beat this thing; I hope so. My dad's been gone almost forth years, and my mom is quite elderly, but I'm just not ready for my brothers to start leaving.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), June 29, 2000.

Lon:

Post a message here if you are interested in having me publish or find someone I trust publish your writings.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), July 05, 2000.

FS,

My email is real, and I should welcome any suggestions you may have.

As I said earlier, I'm not sure I have the disipline necessary to see a real project through to completion, but I would like to talk about possibilities. I have practicing my skills a lot lately, and have another saga like the old circus one of TB2000, going on over at the FRL friends forum (with help). So, maybe I could learn to produce something longer than ten lines.

:)

Lon -------------------------------------------

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), July 06, 2000.