Essays from The Excursion

A Rock in the Stream follows Jim Miller from observation into witness, and asks what it costs to stop drifting.

Just Maintenance argues that tending is not what comes after the important work. It is the important work.

The Deed and the Ground follows survey, patent, and section corner to ask what it means to answer to the land.

I Just Stood There traces three griefs and arrives at the only response to loss that does not lie.

On the query letter that was written, why it was never sent, and the letter that actually matters.

A structural map of the retelling: archetypes, translated settings, cemetery logic, and the watershed ending.

The marker tree, the ground beneath the cycle, and the reverse-chronology design of the larger work.