There was no moon. In the cloud of stars, the milky way lined up with the Kiln’s sparks and my awake-all-night memories. A runaway, hitchhiking towards Alaska, every mile getting further from anyone. As the miles became thousands the stars became friends. Wood fired pottery is absurd. It does this to me. It brings me back. The work, the labor, the time. Days and nights with this big kiln. Like hitchhiking for months — with no destination — you find more than any plan could ever give.
Missoula, northern lights, midnight May 11th/May 12
I’ve always been a hoarder of memories.
My stockpiles include
words I should have written
mixed with the letters
I waited for that did not arrive.
I also keep photographs
that never existed,
like the ones showing
the color of your laughter
as it washed over my ordinary gray,
surprising me into
dropping my burdens
to follow you.
Sometimes I still go
to those places we went
and wander in the rows of Mondays
among the stacks of lost hours
which were filled
with perfect, wasted time.
What I keep no one can steal.
And these sounds that
I listen for when it is quiet,
and this brightness that I look towards
when I close my eyes,
these are the intangibles
that brought hands from slouched pockets
and into the open air
where we greeted each other,
these are what
pushed and pulled us
into our lives.
- Steve S. Saroff
Total lunar eclipse over mount Jumbo, Missoula.
Those moments that we took for granted, those easy ones between the hard parts, are like the stars we sometimes forget to look for on the rare, dark nights when the sky is clear and the storms are long ago. What is infinite is not a number that I can explain, but it is a place that I dream of, a place where we have been and a place where we are going.
One in the morning, on a clear, moonless night, camped off of a forest service road. Hello, is anyone there? Across the water, the light from a house miles away. Or up there, the spine of our milky way. Through this Aether of radio waves and glowing screens, what lights do we shine?Utah Sun Tunnels. They are art work by Nancy Holt, set up in the late 70’s, placed on the edge of a salt flat to line up with the solstices. 9 foot diameter, by 18 foot long cement pipes truly in the middle of nowhere.
I got to Mono lake early in the morning and after walking near the tufa formations I wanted to photograph them at night, so I camped nearby in the desert. Went to sleep in the late afternoon, set an alarm, and woke at midnight. Then I was up all night. Watched the clouds move, waited for the patches of clearness and a brief appearance in the south of the Milky Way. Listened to coyotes, heard geese land in the saline water, saw bats skimming the lake surface, watched the stars fade as the sun came up.
- More Selected Photos:
- Night and Star Photos
- Costal Photos
- Fire and Earth Photos
- Clay and Pottery Photos
- People Photos
- Photos with words - I
- Photos with words - II
- Photos with words - III
- fresh photos/words are posted 1st on social media. Follow here:
- Insta @stevesaroff
- Insta @seaRanchLife
- fb @steve.saroff
Writing Sampler
Dear Reader, I truly hope some of the moods in my writing reach you. But, if you prefer to listen rather than read, many of these stories and writings are available on Spotify, iTunes, etc., as well as directly on the Montana Voice Podcast
And to readers who want more: the best way to encourage the publication of my next book is for my current books to receive more reviews. If you have read Paper Targets please consider leaving a review of it on Amazon. - Thank you!!!
Most of the stories and essays beneath have been puplished elsewhere, but sometimes I post new work and move out old work.
Fiction:
- Success - a short story
- Letter To My Daughter - a love story in Redbook (A bit about how it was published here)
- Wildhorse Island - another Redbook story
- Boston Girl - a short story set in Missoula.
- Lies - an Enzi story
- Christmas, Seventeen - an Enzi story
- The Long Line of Elk, poetry.
- Paper Targets, the popular novel inspired by true events.
- Back story I of Paper Targets
- Back story II - more of what happened
- PVO - remembering a friend
- Dyslexia, the advantage
- Leaving Home - a rememberance
- Music - another rememberance
- R/V Wecoma, On the route to becoming a shellback
Click here to Contact Steve S. Saroff
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Steve S. Saroff — Start-up consultant — Author
(c) 2024 Saroff Corporation
www.saroff.com