Note to Chris and to Mary (who often forget their cameras when they go places)

I have never takes a decent photograph without my camera. Besides, you never know when you might bump into Bigfoot or Elvis.

--Mitchell Hegman

Saint Mary Lake and Wild Goose Island

Glacier National Park, October 15, 2011

--Mitchell Hegman

Glacier Park, Montana

Fall colors against a Two Medicine rockface and fresh snow at higher elevations.

--Mitchell Hegman

Caution Observed

Part III

Caution starves both predator and prey.

--Mitchell Hegman

Ursula's Voice

Yesterday, I made a business call to a faraway woman named Ursula. After the call ended, I continued to think about the yielding lilt in every word she spoke. Her “thank you” sounded the same way cotton balls feel when you take them up and roll them between your fingers. I quickly realized—as her voice looped and kitten-stepped around my thoughts—that I wanted to marry Ursula's voice and sleep every night with her Russian accent.

--Mitchell Hegman

Without Caution

Caution

Part II

I drove the rain-wet highway down drive from Great Falls, leaving behind the open plains, with the whole expanse behind me pressed flat by a vast azure sky filled with scudding clouds—their shadows cast down hard against the pale earth and all probing in a single direction. At some point, the landscape grew wild and tousled. The Missouri River flung itself free from a crooked cage of dark, volcanic mountains and lashed out across the open expanse. The mountains soon tipped themselves upright against the highway and closed in around the roadway. Rocks teetered just above the endless loops and climbs as I drove directly into the pop-up mountain range. Inside the mountain drive, the blonde grass turned into honey pouring downslope between spines of stone. The Missouri river kept swinging back and forth all around me, under the highway, through openings between shadowy thrusts of stone, beside the occasional hayfield patterned with rows of freshly baled hay, the water shimmering.

This is the landscape I love most. This is the place I love most. Give me a landscape the rises and falls without caution. Give me rock spires that are unafraid of reaching for the sky and a curious river that never settles for a single direction.

--Mitchell Hegman

Caution

Part I

Enough of the caution that has trapped me in casual attire and placed me inside mid-sized cars replete with fake leather seats. Give me the real thing—throw me on leather while the framing beast is still on hoof and storming the foothills. Place me in spikes at the stark white start line of a red cinder track. Cross my chest with brass belts made of live ammunition. Brick the accelerator to the floor and direct me toward a sharp curve. Allow me to occupy the shark cage and then plunk me below the swelling waves.

Caution lines the bottom of the parrot’s cage. Caution wipes the kitchen counter clean and then returns with disinfectant that stings your nose. Caution stands inside the door instead of dancing frenzied blue tracks out into the sparkling white of new snow. Caution weeps hunched in the corner while wrapped in a terrycloth robe. Caution is afraid to leave the house in unmatched socks.

Enough of that. Today, I start with unmatched socks.

--Mitchell Hegman