The Earth is rising up into the sky spinning, howling, whistling, sandblasting, snapping branches that have not yet learned to bend, rattling nests, battering birds, desiccating what it what is already dry from drought, obscuring the mountains surrounding us and generating crazy-making static. Earth on the wind finds fire, screams life into the blaze, belches…

Bullying wind scouring snarling screaming whistling whining shrieking through loose rattling windowpanes. The gusts grate on my nerves, invade my sinuses and tear ducts The wind blows as if entitled to be rude; grit covers my desk, books, papers, and laptop. It relentlessly scours the tenderness of spring, drives her back underground forces baby birds…

The combo punch of craniotomy, six weeks of radiation, and chemotherapy did a number on my hair so one day I decided to go to the local barbershop in Colorado Springs and have my head shaved. Henry and I had discovered a repurposed elementary school north of Penrose Hospital. The classrooms had been turned into…