Beauty

Sheep and their fierce protectors

The Hudson River School's works have been termed romanticized and idealized and sometimes, flat out twee. If you’ve not been to Upstate New York, I suppose that’s how they could, possibly, seem. Like something out of an over the top romance novel. To me, the paintings are gorgeous, faithful capturings of the magnificent landscape and tremendous qualities of light.

It’d been an entire year since I’d last been up to Hoosick Falls. Too damn long but, as I’ve mentioned before, this past year was a rough one. In that time, the absolute fact of the area’s intense, bodacious, elemental beauty, somehow, strangely slipped out of my head.

Here’s the thing, even on a grey/brown blah, leafless early winter day, Upstate New York is one of the most brilliantly, jaw droppingly gorgeous parts of this country. Yeah, no ocean in Upstate but that’s OK. Apart from my Valhallan home, more than anywhere else on this great big, vast continent, I could see living here. The place gets to me on a molecular level.

Oni reminded me last night, as I was gushing over the area's megawatt pulchritude, that Upstate was Mohawk and Mahican territory...until all those refugees came over from England and Europe that is. Just imagine.

Mohawk poets to look into:
Janet Rogers
Gregory Golden
Robert Ronnow
Richard G. Green
Beth Brant
Check out this site—Six Nations Writers—for more.