“Preserving the fruit, I bottle up bits of my ardor, to reclaim in moments of pang and privation. In those jars is the work of hands that have delighted in silken mud, that have caressed sandstone curves, that have cradled collections of stones and feathers and cedar beads. When I eat the work of these hands, I am ingesting moonrise over cottonwood trees, echoing thunderclaps preceding rain, sand and sage-scent carried on the wind. Everything that nurtures the fruit nurtures me. My jeweled jars tell a love story. There is magic in this place.”

—excerpted from “Jeweled Jars of Memory,” Capitol Reef Reader, 2019—