Opening Day Eve 2011, photo Jesse Reeves.

 There are gestures that are at once both empty and warm, cancelling each emotion out in a fetid handshake that lends itself to politicians, religious leaders, and car salesman. That feeling of breaking even that besmirches the identity we all aspire to attain – hard worked, unflinching, trustworthy. These days a changing of the seasons may pass as a social media tirade of suffering or promise, all of which are in the eye of the victim or victor. With this season of falling leaves and disgruntled emoticon remorse to the fallacies of summer, we press pause on the delinquencies of our lives and give chase to the ephemeral. The handshake given in times of hope and leisure is returned by reality, which in turn hands us uncertainty and reprisal. We long for this token in spades and it never can quench our thirst the other 7 months on the year. We are pushed through the gates of redemption or continuity with nothing left to ask of but our own agendas and delusions. The opening day is as holy as any. Kneel, cry, and adorn the holy.

  The lightning that scatters from the brush and gives our hearts a stirring that can’t be pronounced. The dead drop of warm feathers into our quaking hands, the quivering tails of our worker bees who have long forgotten the down time once the boots hit the sage again. We defile ourselves for months because our true selves cannot be brandished, and now wandering the mountains with a shotgun hitched to a quaky trigger finger brings about the beast within, plotting it’s discourse among the canyons and bluffs, ready to render the bloodsport that dwells inside. Shaking hands with the devil within.

  The time is near and the music is right. We make our troubles disappear in footfalls hard earned and pointing dogs possessed. We make the hills sing with scatterguns and echos foreign. Blood and feathers be damned, it’s all part of the game. And to play it is to win. Let the games begin.