When I was in Montana I was absorbed by the open landscape of the West. I tried to note the sunset each night and memorize the way the surrounding, cast-off bricks of the Archie Bray's brick-yard origins captured the waning light. It was too cold to sit by an open window until the light was gone, but the words of Ted Kooser lingered in my imagination like the sunset. These words are inscribed in this plate, printed backwards, written with the pale grey ghost of my hand.
.
A Happy Birthday
This evening I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.
--Ted Kooser
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