In Laura’s Words
I write to shine a light on a dim or otherwise pitch black corner…to provide relief for myself and others. It’s the light that I am looking for. And the wonder it illuminates.
May my words land in your heart.
yours, Laura
Rain Songs
Rain Songs by Laura Munson (as seen on the Huffington Post: click here) I used to sing. On purpose. In choirs and in singing groups…starting from the time I was a little girl, up until a few years ago when the band I was in broke up. I used to sing to my kids every night—lie in bed with them and sing old folk tunes. My daughter was born with...
Drowning to the Self
Well, tomorrow is my 43rd birthday and I have a lot to celebrate this year. As opposed to last year when I fell out of a river raft in the Middle Fork of the Flathead River in Glacier National Park near where we live...and got to ride a class 3 rapid, old school-- pre-canoe. It was the worst birthday of my life. I was in the midst of my marital...
Empty Boat
Empty Boat by Laura A. Munson I live for passion. But I oppose fanaticism, fanatically speaking. My mouth lashes against it with venom. Hot tears come catapult. My head swirls, tempestuous. It’s fight or flight. I usually flee, hot and wet, knowing that I have given yet another zealot power they don’t deserve, but require. From fools like me. I...
Begging the Bear
Begging the Bear by Laura A. MunsonI went for the smell of wild roses pulsing in the vanilla of Ponderosas. For the June blues and purples: penstamon, flax, lupine, geranium. I went for the ninety-degree heat and cobalt skies after so many months by the woodstove, wearing a shawl. I went for the view from the ridge, to see what my valley looks...
A Robin in the Woodstove
A Robin in the Woodstove by Laura A. Munson Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all --Emily Dickinson March 18, 2003 I was standing in front of the television this morning, watching the footage of last night: 48 hours for Saddam and his sons to get out of Iraq…or...
Roaming in the Groaning
Roaming in the Groaning by Laura A. Munson My friend gave me a trout that she caught with her husband, ice fishing. I asked her to tell me about ice fishing. I was new to Montana. I was bullied by other people’s peak experiences. By their permission to do things like ice fishing. I knew about art museums. Liberal Arts education. And traveling....
The Fire-fighter and the Grizzly Bear
Laura A. Munson The Firefighter and the Grizzly Bear by Laura A. Munson I sat next to a New York City firefighter this morning, at the café in town. He was visiting Montana; here to fish. “Were you—you know…there?” I said. He talked about it for a little while. I shook my head, speechless. “So, where’d you go fishing?” I asked, trying to change...
Stop the Clocks
Stop the Clocks by Laura A. Munson (for Erin and Caden) Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the...
Break Me In, Montana
Break Me in, Montana by Laura A. Munson I begged for this. This house. This land. This time. This husband and these children. I begged to know a place season for season. To use last summer’s spent perennials as winter mulch. To rake it off when the Lenten roses poke through. To know, finally, which one is the North Star, and use it to find my way...
My Lover, LA
My Lover, LA by Laura A. Munson I love my children. I love my husband. I love my mother and deceased father. Sister and brother. Every person on my Christmas card list. Two dogs, two horses, cat, and pet rat—love ‘em all. I love Montana too—my twenty acres and the hills around our house, the miles I log in them on my trusty horse, the tracks I...
Mother Bear at the Plaza
Mother Bear at the Plaza by Laura A. Munson I was reared for walking in and out of places like New York’s Plaza Hotel. But I live in Montana now and sometimes I forget how to be that girl. That girl having her first tea at the Palm Court in low riding white tights and a scratchy wool coat, standing three feet and agape below the Eloise portrait,...
The Pack Rat Ate My Patagonia
The Pack Rat Ate my Patagonia by Laura A. Munson I have never wanted to kill something before. Trap it live, and then shoot it. Or drown it in a glacially chilled grave. That thing—with the pretty little well-appointed pink nest, with its self-important aroma and little be-jewelled leavings. You see, I am planning a surprise party for my mother’s...
Inversion
Inversion by Laura A. Munson It’s lonely in February with just one woodpecker and a few chickadees against the grey. They call it inversion. Our valley is flanked by the Whitefish Range—foothills to the Rockies-- what in summer looks like a towering garden wall. Then winter rolls in from the Pacific Ocean and gets caught along its jagged edges;...
Raven
Raven by Laura A. Munson I know a woman who frequently finds hearts. In rocks, in the dish suds, in the shape of manure clods. She’ll say, “Laura! Come here.” And I’ll know that I am about to see some mystical arrangement of two curves, cleavage, and a point. I know another woman who claims that whenever she begins a trip—in her car, on...
Spring-blind
Spring-blind by Laura A. Munson I have not noticed spring like this before. Perhaps this owes to the fact that this spring has been a long one—two years, more or less. It began with the Snow Geese migration last April which I drove five hundred miles round trip in one day to see, over the Rocky Mountains (and back), to a place called Freezeout...
