The essential Walt McDonald / Walt McDonald.

Part 1
Praise
My Father on His Shield
The Waltz We Were Born For
Baptizing the Dog at Nine
Crossing the Road
Hosanna in the Family
The Night of Rattlesnake Chili
Uncle Earl's Wind River Ranch
Driving at Night Across Texas
The Dark, Hollow Halo of Space
Faith Is a Radical Master
One Night Before Saigon
The Food Pickers of Saigon
Out of the Stone They Come
After the Noise of Saigon
Counting Survivors
What If I Didn't Die Outside Saigon
Cascading Down McDonald Creek
The Digs in Escondido Canyon
To the Tribe
Adoption
One Morning Between Wars
Blessings the Body Gave
Autumn in Our Hands
Old Pets
That Child Abandoned on the Porch
The One That Got Away
Stumbling to the Deck at Dawn
Halfway Between the Gulf and Mountains
Watching Dawn on Padre Island
Gardens of Sand and Cactus
Dark as the Plains Out There
In Gusty Winds That Wild
What Old Pilots Say
Squall Line at Sixty-five
For Friends Still in Vietnam
Killing Nothing but Time
All We Do Is Already History
Learning How in the Southwest
Diamonds in the Carnegie Museum
Boiling Shells at Kitty Hawk
Hardscrabble, Tooth and Claw
When Children Think You Can Do Anything
The Dust We're Made Of
Dazzling Montana Dawns
After His Apache Crashed
The Winter They Bombed Pearl Harbor
Rocking for Days in the Shade
Wishing for More Than Thunder
Climbing the Divide in Montana
Fishing with Uncle Walter
When It Seemed Easy
Uncle Earl's Last Ride in Dallas
Witching on Canvas
The Hairpin Curve at Durango
Watching for Ships off Padre Island
Before the Glaciers Melt
Barter
Boys and Their Fathers' Shotguns
In the Shallow Molasses
Harvest All Year Long
When the Children Have Gone
The Summer Her Family Moved to Houston
Grandmother Bankhead's Lake
Backpacking with My Bride in Montana
Songs of Country Girls
Cousin Billy and the Weather
Bull
Goat Ranching viii Contents
Bulls, at Sundown
In Green Pastures
Lay Down the Battle Axe, the Halyard
October Compost
The War in Bosnia, the Beach at Kitty Hawk
Stoking the Logs at Dawn
A Thousand Miles of Stars
When I Glance Up
Batting Practice at Sixty
All Dogs Are Pirates
Old Pilots in the Crowd at Kitty Hawk
Christmas Bells, Saigon
When Rockets Fell Like Stars
Crashes Real and Imagined
Grandmother's Thousand Cats
Giving Time to the Dirt in Rows
Taking the Keys Away
Words I Looked Up in World War II
Marriage Is a Bungee Jump gg Breathless for Twenty Seconds
This Could Be Eden
A Little World Made Cunningly
Packing Parachutes in Flight School
After the Mad Songs of Saigon
Bull-Necked and Square-Jawed After Saigon
Caught in a Storm on Hardscrabble
Estacado
Jogging at Sixty-five
The Rodeo Fool
Setting the Torch to Stubble
We Called It Entering Heaven
The Eyes in Jimmy Ray's Shed
In the Alchemist's Household
The Moves a Body Makes
To Have and to Hold
Leaving the Scene
Five Fathoms Down Off Hatteras
Look at That, There's Shorty!
With Mercy for All
A Glimpse of Silver
Survival Training
Blocks Grandfather Carved
Growing Up by the Brazos
For All Friends Missing in Action
Before Flying Off to War
Voices on Jukebox Wax
Spitfire
After Thousands of Miles
I Still Can't Say the Word
Uncle Charlie at the Abbey
The Risk of Having Children
Sympathy
Jogging at Sundown
Backpacking the San Juan
Reading "Ecclesiastes" at Sixty
Watching Parades in the Game Room
Living on Buried Water
Flood Fishing
Old Men Fishing at Brownwood
Night Missions
Nothing to Do but Start Over
A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear
Fog on the Outer Banks
Twins and Oral History
How It's Done
Anniversary: One Fine Day
The Fox All Winter Long
Grandfather's Pocket Watch
Catching My Grandson
Alone in the Tundra
PTSD, or For Friends Who Never Left the Battle
Losing It Again in Bozeman
As Natural as Lions
My Father Light as a Boy
Old Men Are Dreamers
The Summer Uncle Carl's Herd Was Sold
Facing It
Clouds Whip by in the Valley
Finding Great-Grandfather's Hands
The First Months Home, PTSD
My Cousin and the VA Nurse
Grandchildren in the Maritime Museum
Between Two Shores of Toledo
Flicking Its Tongue at the Sun
Watching Rose Embers Wink
After the Lost War
For God in My Sorrows
The Tongues of Sparrows
Traveling in Packs
With Our Son's Bow at Dusk
After Fires in Montana
Island Hopping with MacArthur
Song for One-Armed Cowboys
Stones Grandfathers Carved
Weeding Strawberry Gardens
All I Know to Do
That Clatter in the Attic
Bless Weeds That Bloom in Fall
The Year Biology Made Sense
Blizzards When I Was Ten
Aunt Linda and the Pink Bikini
The Midas Touch in Texas
The Women Under Rubens' Thumb
Jogging with Oscar
Part 2
Mesas I Never Took the Time to Climb
Marriage
Summer Nights
Oranges for My Sister When She Was Nine
Digging in a Footlocker
Buzzing in a Biplane
The Songs We Fought For
Night Solo, Georgia
Flying a Perfect Loop
Night Landings
Hazards of Flight
First Solo in Thunder
For Dawes, on Takeoff
The Children of Saigon
For Friends Missing in Action
The Gleam of Silver Wings
Bargaining with God
Wherever Puff Goes
Rembrandt and the Art of Mercy
First Solo
Nights on the Porch Swing
Nothing Should Be Alone for Long
A Woman Acquainted with the Night
Opening the Cabin in April
Casting at Vallecito
Heirlooms
Wind and Hardscrabble
Magical Hammocks at Bedtime
Nights without Rockets
Crows at Dawn in Montana
Whatever It Takes
Seining for Bass
Living on Open Plains
Loading the Steers
Finding My Father's Hands in Midlife
Grandmother's House at Kitty Hawk
Bulldozing the Outer Banks
What the Wind Delivers
Settling the Plains
Wind in the Rockies
Praying for Rain on the Plains
Living Near Oak Creek Dam
The Mind Is a Hawk
Retrievers in Winter
Blue Jays in Summer
Perpetual Motion
The Golden Years
All That Aches and Blesses
Geldings on Mountain Ranches
Tornado Chasing
Stalls in All Weather
Ranching at Glacier
Signs of Prairie Rattlers
Sleeping with Strangers
Big Dogs after War
Where the Train Slows Down
Fences
Praying for Rain in the Rockies
Cattle in Rain
The Tap of Angry Reins
The Flying Dutchman
The Art of Growing Old
A Round Horizon without a Town
Dogs in the World They Own
Letting Go
Time for the Traction of Docks
Leaving Sixty
Reaching Sixty
Losing a Boat on the Brazos
Saying the Blessing
Turning Sixty-five on Hardscrabble
Honky-Tonk Blues
The Price They Paid for Range
On the Gunnison
Uncles on Sunday Battlegrounds
Wishing for Easter All Year Long
Tracking on Hardscrabble
A Little Night Music
Opening the Cabin in March
Dawn on the Outer Banks
How Much Time We're Promised
Father's Field of Pheasants
On a Saturday Afternoon
Grace and the Blood of Goats
Rowing in Eden
Bones in a San Juan Mine, 11,000'
Someday
Farms at Auction
Rodeo Bulls
Coyotes and Dogs
Neighbors Miles Away
Uncle Jerry and the Velvet Dog
The Meaning of Flat Fields
Coming Home
Charts
Valley of the Shadow of Death
Uncle Philip and the Endless Names
The Invention of Courage
My Cousin and the Widow's Ranch
Sausage in the Mess Hall
Who Swears the Last Blind Beggar's Doomed?
Buzzards and Uncle Douglas
Aunt Emma and the Spoils of War
Hammering Ice to Slush
Splitting Wood for Winter
Filing Systems
The Middle Years
After a Year in Korea
Grandfather Pounding Iron
The Winter Daddy Died
Windmills Like Cathedral Windows
Prairie Was a Tableland of Praise
Uncle Howell and the Magic of Moonlight
The Perks of Being a Greenhorn
Hardscrabble June
Making Book on the Aquifer
Getting It Done
Out in the Pasture at Dusk
Tasting the Night Air Gladly
Pleasures of Coffee Together
Boys with Chihuahua Dogs
The War in Bosnia
The Rockets' Red Glare
Hauling over Wolf Creek Pass in Winter
Part 3
Seconds of Free Fall and Chaos
Fifth Grade
Digging on Hardscrabble
Hawks in a Bitter Blizzard
All the Old Songs
With Horsehairs Dipped in Oils
After Eden
A Brief Familiar Story of Winter
Starting a Pasture
Blue Skies
There Are No Old Bold Pilots
The Winter Before the War
Bloodlines
With Cindy at Vallecito
Growing Up Flying
Fathers and Sons
Sons
Fathers and Pearl Harbor
Dad's Straight Razor
Barking Hosanna
Wherever Others Are Going
One Summer Before Saigon
Sweet Nothings
Slow Times Near the River
Sunday Morning Roundup
After the Flight Home from Saigon
The Goats of Summer
When It Thunders
Alone in a Windstorm
Beans Grown in Caliche
After the Madness of Saigon
Crop Dusting in a Biplane
Without Fear of Flying
Jacob's Ceiling
The Summer Our Grandsons Turned Twelve
Night Shuttle
Pulling Old Gloves Back On
Hawks, Up Close and Far Away

The Songs at Rusty's
Hawks in the World They Own
The Skulls That Eat Such Dust
Designed for the Shallows
Out of the Whirlwind
Mercy and the Brazos River
Rafting the Brazos
Wolves in Playa Lakes
At the Stone Cafe
Our Neighbor Who Kept Pigeons
Consider the Lilies
Uncle Homer and the Cubs
Rattler
Watching for Signs
In Hot, Hardscrabble Skies
Rattlesnakes Locked Eyes with Me
Can Deserts Like Dead Bones Live?
Two Years After World War II
Hauling on Hardscrabble
Witching on Sand
Nights in the San Juan
Fishing the Brazos
Midnight Near Pecos
Night of the Scorpion
Dust Devils
Learning the Story of Scars
How the Records Fell
Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos
Caught in a Squall Near Matador
Where Seldom Is Heard
The Neighbor
Black Wings Wheeling
Found in an Alley Dumpster
High Plains Orchards
Spending the Night Near Matador
The Beach at Kitty Hawk, the Long Ride Home
High Plains Drifter
Moses, at Jordan
A Distant Relative
Billy Bastrop and the Centipede
Teeth Know
The Girl in the Mackinaw and Panties
Hit and Run
University Library
Bermuda Grass
Flamingos on the Plains
Boys and the Laws of Mercy
Hunting the Pasture
Dawn of the Bitter Blizzard
Goats Imported from Austin
Searching
The Snowplow Driver
The Last Five Acres of Timber
A Thousand Yards Downhill
Weeds, Barn Owls, All Nibbling Goats
Taking Each Deep Breath
Pools Under the Campus
Steeples and Deep Wells
Where Skies Are Not Cloudy
Releasing the Hawk in August
Picasso and the Art of Angels
Steers in Blizzards
Lockett, Where the Water Quit
Stars and the Laws of Motion
Windmills Near Escondido Canyon
Driving Home to the Plains
One Thing Leads to Another
The Last Saloon in Lockett
The Ogallala Water Table
Anniversary Six Miles High
On Losing a Child
Hosannas Dangling on Strings
Where the Trees Go
It's Still the Same Old Story
Part 4
Hunting First Drafts in Vinny's Place
The Second Sign
Banjo Saturday Nights
Jostled Pods of a Yucca
Sandlot Baseball, Before Pearl Harbor
After the Long Flight Home from Seoul
At the Football Stadium
Town Girls When I Was Nine
Doctors, Lawyers, Undertakers
A Bowl, A Little Skull
Climbing Geometry
Hoping the Playground Would Notice
Sounds in the Mountain Cabin
Against This Winter
After Living a Long Time Alone
Well I'll Be Damned
What Clark Taught about Cockpits and Sonnets
Finding a Cracker-Jack Surprise
Ponderosa of a Thousand Fires
A Clown Fired from a Cannon
The Oldest Nurse in Our Hometown
A Woman Titian Would Love
Uncle Oscar's Trophies
Belling the Cat
If Owl Named the Animals
My Brother's Photos from Okinawa
What I Can't Promise
Grandfather and the Boys He Knew in School
The Range Looks Flat to Cattle
Tugging Bull-Necked Oxen
What Uncle Don Saw on Guam
Things About to Disappear
Uncle George and the Farm Aunt Martha Bought
Night Watch
The Farm at Auction
A Player that Struts and Frets on Stage
Cousin Eddy and the Packed Chapel
Riding the Range for Strays
Scanning the Range for Strays
Mother's Hand-Stitched Seams
Leaving the Middle Years
Pastures on the Plains
Ars Poetica, Pilgrim
Night of the Steep Arroyo
With a Woman Who Looks Like Crystal Gayle
Ten Miles of Coyotes
Dawn in Montana
That Night and Others Like It
The Noise of Jukebox Steel Guitars
Loaded for Bulldozers and Bears
Looking for Dry Land
Nearing the End of a Century
Faith is a Beast and Blessing 5io Billy Cox and the Rocket
Night of the Bonfire Club
December after World War Two
The Tongues of Birds
Midnight Near Ralls
Someone I Hadn't Thought of in Years
Toulouse, Maurice, Francois of Tulia
To All Friends Fast Asleep
Strokes
After the Fall of Bataan
Catfish Farm on the Brazos
The Last Unstocked Stream in Colorado
On Taking a Small Son Hunting
Ejecting from Jets
Reasons for Taking Risks
Driving Rampart Range on Our Honeymoon
Harvest
Long in the Tooth and Tame
The Mating Season
On Sons and Sleeping Dogs
May All Our Babies Have Angels
Aunt Emma's Garden
In the High-Country Medical Center
Father and the Sad Soap Operas
Angelica's Banjo and Karate
Uncle Carl and the Purple Heart
A Time to Keep Silence
Retired Pilots at the High School Track
What Do You Wish They Could Do?
Wars and Rumors of War
My Wife's First Day of Class
Father after the War
The Right to Bear Arms
After the Random Tornado
Midnight at Dillon
Temple of the Lame, the Grateful
The Last Pullman to Houston
Cousin Roy's Gold Star and Market
Ranching at Ridgeway
Dawn on the Telephone Wires
Uncle Giuseppe and the Razor's Edge
Nobody Dead or Missing
Home Movies
Granny Hedy and the God Called Fine
Ranching in the San Juan
What Old Pilots Never Did but Once
Marching Through Georgia
Uncle Leland and the Laws of Boulders
Tactics
After the Monsoon
Keeping Up with the Joneses
In Times of Plenty
War Never Stops until All Vets Are Dead
Summer with Dakota
Trusting in Women Who Fly
The B-25 and Bombs
Wishing for Friends from Childhood
Tommy and the Appaloosa
Joe Bubba's Grandpa's Barn
Boys and Girls by the Brazos
Gehenna and the County's Tires
Search and Rescue
What We Wouldn't Give
Cougars and Uncle Bob
Approaching the Condo
Believing Every Word
Grandmother and the Lions' Den
What Saves Us
Keeping Time by the Clatter of Horseshoes
Grandchildren Tumbling from Cars
Mercy Was a Plate of Peas and Cornbread.