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<hr noshade color="#9999FF" width="85%" size="4" align="left"> <h2 class="title"><a href="http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/index.php/MichaelUmphrey/from_the_lit_window1/">Living in Montana</a> from The Lit Window (CSU)</h2> by Michael L. Umphrey I have crossed lives I wanted and left them like adolescence to be here. At sunset I leave home and climb and stand silent, layers of dark gathering ways I’ve not yet been. A hunted animal, I am still, my skin listening. In twilight, barbed wire fades. The only map of here is far away, forgotten in some file in the fluorescent office of a coughing man. A sudden elk below me crashes from timber and pauses, knee-deep in meadow, then leaps soundlessly away. Perhaps unafraid. The sky darkens and I linger between the stars and the safe sparkle of valley yard lights. If I could I’d charm the cosmos, instead of standing stilled, outside a circle of wagons. I practice not wanting luck, longevity, fairness, success—not wanting what I can’t decide. I pause at who I am. What—like a cougar— shifts and tenses in the night around. Copyright 2009 Michael L. Umphrey