
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”

April showers bring more than flowers
When the storm is over, the new growth, tiny and light, timid-green, starts edging our on the buses and three limbs. Then Nature brings April rain. It whispers down soft and lonesome, making mists in the hollows and on the trails where you walk under the drippings from hanging branches of trees.
It's a good feeling, exciting—but sad too—in April rain. Granpa said he always got that kind of mixed-up feeling. He said it was exciting because something new was being born and it was sad, because you knowed you can't hold onto it. It will pass too quick.

Into the Woods
Change is a new road.
The twists and turns, the dips and valleys, the hills that you have yet to climb; they are all unknowns. When you step into a new road, it can feel like you are all alone. Change can leave us breathless and reeling; staggering from step to step, looking frantically down this unknown path and back from which we came. Which way was it again? We're lost.

Almost thirty years in the making, the river Beautiful will be published as a premium hardcover, a value softcover, and a very special online multimedia experience.
Select a chapter below to view exclusive content from the upcoming collection of new and selected works by Jason Christopher Hackwith.
original prose, poetry, lyrics, illustrations and typography