Into The Wind, Tales & Poetry of the Memaloose Hills

By Richard Benner

(Author’s description) Richard Benner spent 15 months of the pandemic in a small house in the Memaloose Hills of the Columbia Gorge. He walked the trails countless times, often leaving the trail to track an animal or find a favored bird. As Momaday exhorted, he gave himself up to his beloved landscape. And he kept a journal that became Into the Wind.

Into the Wind tells of moisture-laden clouds from the Pacific mixing with warm, dry air of the high desert to form phantasmic clouds. Of epic winds that send trees dancing toward the east and grasses surfing to the west. The Wind speaks of the Native Peoples’ long presence in the middle Gorge and the gifts coyote bestowed upon them. Birds and flowers surprise and delight at every turn. He planted oaks and pines for each of his grandchildren so they could share his enchantment of the middle Gorge.

Into the Wind closes with a Memaloose dream: “I see the bullfrog’s shadow puppet move beneath the ice on the willow pond. I catch chipping sparrows bouncing slowly in the tall grass, bowed by the snow. One flies to my outstretched finger and returns my gaze, its head tilted with curiosity.”

Into the Wind will appeal to any lover of the Columbia River Gorge.