It's probably a bit difficult to describe my feelings about having found my precious trilobite. Since childhood, I have always been fascinated by fossils, rocks, shells, pieces of wood...anything that connected me to the earth and the slow march of time. When I was quite small, my grandmother gave me a perfectly preserved trilobite that once belonged to my great-grandfather. It turns out that he loved fossils and rocks, as well, and collected some fine specimens. This one trilobite is about 300 million years old. When I moved from one law office to another, about five years ago, I packed it into a small box, with some other precious items (all of which I had on display in the office) and stored it away in a storage unit. I'm not sure how I lost track of it, but it recently became an obsession when I looked through my current office, and my apartment, and couldn't find it. My mind raced backward through time, trying to remember the body movements that may have picked it up and put it somewhere.

Today, I went to the storage unit to find a children's book that I wanted to read to my small nephews and nieces, when I fly home to Wisconsin on Monday. I was thrilled to find the book, "The Red Ranger," and thought that I might as well dig through boxes that were strewn about the floor in the storage unit to see, if by chance, the trilobite might be hiding in one of them. Sure enough, there it was, in a small box in which I had placed knick-knacks from my old office! I was never so happy to find a rock! The snow might be falling, my plans for the day may have been uprooted and overturned, my heel might still be hurting from the small fracture in it, but I am a very happy camper, right now!

Once again, I feel a close connection with my earth and all that has gone on before this day. I'm not religious; I am spiritual, and my spirit has been uplifted.

These year-end holidays always have a way of drawing things to a close. They force reflection. What happened this year? Then, after we figure out what happened, we assess the importance of it all. What did we do; what did we learn; what will remain unchanged; what will change; are we content; are we motivated; are we depressed; what does it all mean? I look back and see, in the balance, a positive year. I look forward to another one. I think that is the best we can all hope for; to look forward to doing it all again. Highlights, for me? Hawaii, diving, photographs, kayaking, running in races I love, spending time with my father, learning of my grandfather's tomb, fishing, writing, meeting new friends, reconnecting with old friends, loving my work, being naked in the wind and sun, watching my plants grow, feeding my birds and listening to their happiness, going to Burning Man with my daughter, Obama....so much to be thankful for!

Wishing everyone who reads this a very warm and loving end of the year....2009 is going to be wonderful!

Impending doom growing
Like the mole on your back
The small lump within
The building blockage
In a space with no boundary
No dimension but one distant
Irrational fear behind your heels
Silent, ominous, enlarging
Swallowing every thing
Though there is no thing
Just blankness in the force
Of a rolling black sphere
And no amount of dodging
Or attempt to evade escapes
The inexorable approach
The slow flee
Through thickening
White exposure



Brad G. Garber © 2008

Three hundred million
Years just gone again
I had held it for awhile
Listening to the soft
Invertebrate sounds
Of Cambrian waters
The oily liquor of life
In bays along the coast
Where edifices rise
Like strands of DNA
Waiting to split into
Falling blocks and sink
Into the building sand
And clay of the land
Of my missing fossil


Brad G. Garber © 2008

The unexplainable source and pull of it
Trajectories of bodies in the warp of time
Small birds in the wind finding dark continents
Sea turtles like saucers skimming to Kure Island
Pools of mercury gleefully rolling together
Like the building, sliding drops of water
On windows moving toward home on highways
Ants sensing the molecules of each other for miles
And humpbacks converging on calls of each other
All of matter held together by weak forces
And the men rushing through the darkness
To the woman with magnets in her skin


Brad G. Garber © 2008