Photo by Mark Cunningham I saddle, mount, and boot the horse forward toward a deeply cut path of fringed roots and barren mesquites. Thorns and limbs reach upward and out like the clawed arthritic hands of an old witch. The sky begins to blow. Shake. Fade. A gunshot echoes. Shadows stretch and twist and lean in, searching for a foothold. A stronghold. A victory. Over what, I don't know. I dismount and lead the horse, my white knight against the dark emptiness. His focus is st

In 1903, a man named Wilson Bentley attached a camera to his microscope and took pictures of individual snowflakes. He was the first to do so, and through his pictures we came to realize no two snowflakes are alike. I find his photographs amazing. Snowflakes form, of course, when warm air collides with another air mass or weather front and condensation takes place. But the water must have something to adhere to, so it grabs hold of bacteria or dust in the air, and upon freezi

As the horse pushes forward, I close my eyes, hips moving in syncopated rhythm with his. I reach out, caressing the wind, and slide...

Five feet above the rusty ground, swaying with each step of the horse like the rolling tides of the ocean that seems so very far away in...

Unwanted. She is a mangy thing after all. Her fur a patchwork of desert sand and ash, bristled and wiry. Lush in places, starved in...

It is not my job to please another. Nor yours for that matter. In southern Arizona he wind is still blowing and my face is warm from the...

In a world of black and white I see permeations of gray. Likely some holdover from long ago when love hid in disguise behind a simple...

Tucked here in my chair of regret, of hopes and aspirations. You see, I know what it’s like to hate yourself. And to love yourself. To be...

and I don't profess to be. That title belongs to others. Me? I am somewhere between horse girl and wanderer. Between stainless steel and...

I'm afraid the rainy season has come and gone and there is nothing left now but to move into cold and dry and sit, listening for that...

I lay back on the picnic bench and dip one toe into the sand. The wind rustles through the strings of my cut off shorts and I can just...

Sometimes you need to stand in the wind. Sun on your face, tangled hair be damned. To walk barefoot in the sand. To sit on the steps and...

Lonely is a learned and weighty thing to carry. Harder still to hold. When the sky casts its shadow across the mountains and the sun...

It’s been a while since I had chocolate ice cream. It has become a delicacy now, in tandem with long, hot showers, garbage disposals and...

Legs long in the stirrups, I sit watching the rivets and washboards of the creek below. Listening to the sound of silt moving across the...

We ride the dry creek of river stones and bluebonnets weaving our way through washouts then backtracking to find a solid path. Past a...