by Birdie Jaworski
When I was a kid my Kentucky relatives scared me. We rarely visited them. I can count six times I saw them during my young years, each time a fishin’ pole biscuit haze, my dad hiding outside, far away, with the newspaper and a transistor radio, my mom drinking Tab in the kitchen. My sisters and I tried …

Hermit’s Peak looks alien, looks sharp against our softly curved sky. The mountain is littered with crevices and caves, its peak rising 3700 feet above Las Vegas. The monolith was once called El Cerro del Tecolote, The Hill Of The Owl, by early Spanish settlers. Old stories tell of a wise feathered messenger from heaven who reminded travelers to …

by Birdie Jaworski

Two handsome men, their chiseled young faces grinning with anticipation, poke each other in the ribs as they swap drinking glasses, one full, one empty. Bartender Kevin Christenson, 25, doesn’t notice; he’s pouring me a pint of Amber Bock, carefully tipping a tall, tapered glass against spout to provide the proper proportions of foamy head and …

by Birdie Jaworski

Twelve miles north of a sleepy Northeastern New Mexican town, the invisible ghosts of majestic beasts roam the outskirts of a manmade lake. 100 million years ago, claw-toed and sloe-eye monsters jockeyed for position here, fought for tender greens, for succulent flesh. The guttural cry of flying reptiles – wingspans as large as 40 feet across – echoed …

by Birdie Jaworski

If you can’t pick who you want for President, you can always pick piñon.
An old woman squats close to the ground next to a short, squat pine. She wears a thick cabled sweater to protect her from the wind cascading across Starvation Peak. Her hands scurry through fallen needles, sifting for tiny elongated seed pods, dumping them by …