A Few More Sentences – 40
Namebini-Giizis (Suckerfish Moon) Edition
Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. In this case, I am happy to present the FORTIETH EDITION! of the monthly sentences. For those of you new here this monthly edition, where I post the daily, single sentences that I’ve accumulated for the month-just-ended, is based on the practice that ultimately led to my first book, One-Sentence Journal, back in 2018.
It’s a simple practice and fulfilling … and also maybe not so simple as it may seem. Regardless, the practice is excellent training for paying attention to the small moments of my life, and I enjoy sharing those moments here. This remains the best and most consistent aspect of my writing efforts, and something within the reach of anyone who simply wants to be a more attentive participant in their own life. These incendiary times I feel call for even more of this kind of focus and, particularly, stillness, as suggested by this wonderful quote from my friend Andō1, via her wonderful Silentium newsletter:
“Let us always take time to stop, to simply be, to wonder in the numinous nature of all things, at such a place, be it at the sea, up on a mountain top, or simply gazing at the fullness of the moon.”
– Andō
And also this, from my friend Anna Brones’s latest newsletter, in reference to Christine Tyler Hill’s The Cloud Report, which I’ve thankfully just learned about:
Christine’s work may be about her one small corner of the world, but we all have a small corner, and we all have a capacity to create deeper connections with those small corners. In the micro, we discover the macro.
Don’t we all need more of that?
– Anna Brones
As always, I deeply appreciate your time and attention. If you feel compelled to offer up a few of your own recent observations in the comments, I would love to see them.
2026_0201: Awake and restless in the unfamiliar darkness, wind shaking my temporary lodging like it’s a shack on the tundra, light spilling through the windows from a gloriously full moon.
2026_0202: Nookomis ripe in the sky over the stunning peaks of the Beartooths while to the east the horizon begins to positively gleam with early streaks of prismatic light, heralding a morning I can’t pull out of anywhere close to recent memory as being so utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
2026_0203: Returned home to the OMD, the local coyotes are particularly vociferous as I set out in the early darkness for my morning walk and, while my spirit soars, I imagine they are announcing to their community that, “Hey, he’s back!”
2026_0204: Nookomis before dawn, blowtorching a rainbow-tinted tunnel through the congealing mist.
2026_0205: The beauty of being old and meeting friends in coffee shops instead of bars is that you can brag about “closing the place” and it’s only 3pm.
2026_0206: I can endure a strained muscle so long as it is the result of actually doing something reasonably epic and not just merely strolling along a popular city pathway on a sunny afternoon.
2026_0207: The driver’s door on the otherwise nondescript sedan is all but covered with a decal or magnet proclaiming the greatness of someone called Jesus while, on the rear passenger window, a sticker demands, “Go back to your state!”, a sentiment that seems at odds with the spirit of any kind of footloose savior.
2026_0208: A late morning opportunity to pretend I’m part of a bookseller crew doing the lord’s holy work again leaves me marginally wistful and a little lonely for what those days were like.
2026_0209: Dim lamplight reading the waning pages of the old poet’s biography, reflecting on a multitude of conflicting and mixed emotions, and mostly imagining this trailer house office is the beloved cabin writing space/hideout I will never, ever have.
2026_0210: Amazed at the stark, exacting line that marks the low point of snowfall across the bare faces of the surprised, surrounding mountains.
2026_0211: Not a dirt clod’s toss from the busy highway the prairie wolf shows utter, unmoving attention to a potential meal.
2026_0212: From my morning view from the Blackfeet’s hotel the snowy east facing crags of the Backbone are at their holiest with the arrival of first light.
2026_0213: There are times when circumstances demand the intrepid wanderer take breakfast among outlaw women, even – if not particularly – in Augusta.
2026_0214: There’s nothing bullshit about this holiday when, much to my glee, Chloe’s display lights up the entire night.
2026_0215: The iron isn’t any lighter at the polished national chain.
2026_0216: The host of the book club makes it a point, several times, to express his disinterest in poetry, going so far as to invite a show of hands from the other attendees over “who here even chooses to read poetry?!” in an attempt to prove his point, and I, wondering “I drove three hours for this?”, am almost tired enough to remind him that poets have fists to aim at faces too, even if it is his fucking house.
2026_0217: A mild morning in the Electric City where I took a percentage of my morning coffee outside in shorts and a t-shirt, my raised hackles from the evening before mostly soothed by the slight chill, only to see the temperatures plummet about 50° by bedtime.
2026_0218: At lights out having performed eleven talks and/or events in forty-eight hours.
2026_0219: On a bitterly cold morning, the mist rising in swirling clouds from the surface of the Missouri River gloriously haze the brilliant sunlight into something particularly otherworldly.
2026_0220: Connecting my ancestors to hers, the still warm heart of a buffalo filling both of my hands.
2026_0221: Errands made bearable by the inclusion of a leisurely saunter.
2026_0222: The settling weight of the emotional impact of the previous flurry of days makes for a Sabbath mired in sluggishness.
2026_0223: No matter the cruel natures of the people the larger community sends to Helena to represent them, the more generous people of the Flathead continue to uplift my visits there.
2026_0224: Updates surrounding current atrocities set my teeth to grinding while the returning birds merely want steady access to food and safe locations to sequester their nests.
2026_0225: My faltering heart would prefer to skirt the perimeter of campus and haul the rest of me instead up the face of the sun-drenched mountain in service to breathlessness and a better view.
2026_0226: The overheard hilarious and crass assessment by the middle-aged woman of the mouth breathing mob of clueless travelers – “Fucking jerkoffs….” – is spot on.
2026_0227: Folding chairs under streetlights filled by a gloriously motley gathering of artists and misfits daring to brave community in service to something greater.
2026_0228: A reflection traversing an empty highway in an immense landscape lacking a trace of cell service, struck utterly by the magnificence of creation and the brevity of my remaining existence: love the land, love all the people, and resist the institutions of power and wealth and distraction with all that I have remaining.
Upcoming Events
If the sentences don’t make it obvious I’ve been spending a lot of time on the road again, doing events public, private, and educational. For the rest of the month, my labors will include the following which I hope those of you Irritables in the vicinities may consider attending!
Friday, March 6, 6PM, Madison Valley Public Library, Ennis, Montana
Tuesday, March 10, 11:30AM Book Reading at City College Library, Billings, MT
and
Thursday, March 12, 11:30AM Book Reading at MSUB Library, Billings, MT
Friends, I am the “Elder-in-Residence” at MSU Billings the week of March 9th. These two events are listed as public events but I don’t know much else about them though they are both part of the One Book Montana program. I am spending the entire week with students and faculty as a guest of the Native American Achievement Center and I’m really looking forward to it.
Saturday, March 14, 1PM, Ninepipes Museum, Charlo, Montana
Saturday, March 21, 2PM, Wild Wings Festival, Choteau, Montana
Friends, I’m doing a little storytelling at this event on Saturday but I’ll be around for the entire festival starting Friday evening. It should be awesome.
I think that’s about it this time around. As always, I am very grateful for your time and attention. I don’t take it lightly! Be gentle to each other out there….
I love Andō’s work and I am deeply indebted to the perspective she shares. To that end, I will happily gift paid subscriptions to the first five people who contact me in interest of receiving the gift.
Yes:
Updates surrounding current atrocities set my teeth to grinding while the returning birds merely want steady access to food and safe locations to sequester their nests.
Ha! Seems like fisticuffs might have been called for here,
2026_0216: The host of the book club makes it a point, several times, to express his disinterest in poetry, going so far as to invite a show of hands from the other attendees over “who here even chooses to read poetry?!” in an attempt to prove his point, and I, wondering “I drove three hours for this?”, am almost tired enough to remind him that poets have fists to aim at faces too, even if it is his fucking house.