“I remember the last sermon I ever heard my father give, not long before his own death:

‘Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives, look upon a loved one in need and ask the same question: We are willing Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true that we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, that part we have to give... is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us... But we can still love them... We can love—completely—even without complete understanding...’

“Now, nearly all those I loved and did not understand in my youth are dead. But I still reach out to them... When I am alone in the half-light of the canyon, all existence seems to fade away to a being with my soul and memories of the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River, and a four-count rhythm, and the hopes that a fish will rise.

“Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the earth’s great flood and runs over the rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words. And some of the words are theirs.

“I am haunted by waters.”

-- Norman Maclean, “A River Runs Through It”

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i am always enchanted by fleeting portraits of the artist such as this