What Good Does It Do

Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. We’re inside of a fortnight until Christmas and even less until the Solstice and we’ve had 50°+ temperatures for about a week here1 in the Old Mill District some distance west of Missoula, MT. That’s pretty unheard of for this time of year and of justified concern, especially for those of us who spend significant stretches of summertime dreaming of coordinating base layers and strapping snowshoes to our feet.2 There was a literal freaking robin in the tree outside my window this morning, one who clearly didn’t get the memo when the rest of his immediate relatives lit out for points south some weeks ago. I hope the little fella makes it through. I hope you all do too.

While on the paperback tour for Becoming Little Shell last summer3 I was poking around the shelves of Backstreet Beat4 on Bainbridge Island on one of those rare occasions where I spent two nights in the same hotel and had a little time one afternoon to enjoy where I was for a couple extra hours. I was in the “B” section of the poetry collection idly looking for something related to Bashō and, failing in that quest, stumbled instead across a copy of David Budbill’s Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse. I was pretty sure I already have it but I didn’t have it with me and I didn’t hesitate to pick it up. Back at my hotel with a little time to linger before the evening event I was able to get a good jump on reading it.

I feel a degree of kinship with David Budbill, though I never met him in person. My friend Leath Tonino did, though, and published a wonderful interview with him at Tricycle a few years ago which you may read HERE if you like. I love Budbill’s approach to writing and to living. It was comforting, if that’s even the correct word, to spend some time in his company; with his reflections on his home near Judevine Mountain