Patch

I was up in the oil patch when I showed Bobby, that old Navajo elder, my brand new cowboy hat. I wanted to know what part of the country it hailed from. It definitely had a distinct presence, no doubt about that, and not something I'd normally wear.

Just what I thought. Texas. Damn straight, Missie, and a 10X besides. What that means is it's tall and sturdy, and can't be blocked no more. It's straw, like a working man would wear, but with some kinda resin coating applied so to stand up to any kind of weather, dyed white, so to reflect that noon day heat. It fits real good, nice and snug, so it won't blow off in the wind nor fall off in a tumble.

Bob, on the other hand, he's gotta 4X, which is far more pliable, so as to give with the wind or the rain, and it's shape can be shifted to almost any form imaginable.

I pointed to the crow's feather tucked in mine. It molted from one of those city crows where I come from, found in the alley by my front door just before I started on this journey. I stuck it in there for a little bit of luck. Cocked to one side, it gave that hat more than a little bit of flair.

I told him how they sometimes talk to me in their guttural city voices. Sometimes I'd talk back. Maybe ask a question directly, in my tone of voice or the way I'd look. They might look back at me then, turn their heads to eye me curiously. Sometimes they'd cry out angrily, others plaintively, a clucking sound, lonely or sad. Trying to warn me, I thought, or, just maybe, trying to encourage?

He looked at it for a time, and then said it was medicine - it can cure cancer. I figure that's a good thing, 'cause I've been smokin' a lot more lately, you know?



the hawk moth takes
its last sip of nectar -
the Bakken and the shale