Harlan Hubbard

Coming in December, 2013
The Road Home is Always a River
Kathy Walden Kaplan
In the cool December of 1946, writer and painter Harlan Hubbard and his musician wife Anna climbed on board their homemade shantyboat and began a five-year odyssey on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, drifting slowly all the way from Cincinnati to the bayous of Louisiana. 

Inspired by the works of Henry Thoreau, Harlan and Anna sought a simpler life close to nature. What they found was a river full of beauty, legions of new  friends, and the adventure of a lifetime.

A newly compiled account of the Hubbards' voyage, The Road Home is Always a River includes information from recently-discovered letters written by Anna Hubbard and from Harlan’s journals, his letters, and from his most famous work, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life.

Thinking Bird

Thinking Bird, lithograph on gampi, 10 x 15

Yesterday the Fox Flew (from the journal)

 

There was a deer here last night.

The pokeweed is gone,

nibbled to a nubbin.  6-1-13

What is the one thing?  Breathing.

This morning even the warm breeze

breathes.  6-1-13

The first 17-year cicada sings.

He’s far away and

there is no answer.  6-2-13

The drowsy squirrel rouses

when the hawk flies

under his branch.  6-4-13

Sharon’s shadow falls flat.

Myrtle’s shadow falls sideways.

My shadow doesn’t fall at all.  6-4-13

Cut off from earth and water,

a garland of round greenbrier leaves

lives on air.  6-5-13

Catbird is chasing

mockingbird in the crab apple.

Swallowtail gets out of the way.  6-8-13

A drop of white poop

from the thick spot in the hedge.

Wren, not moving.  6-8-13

Swallowtail has found

all the vine honeysuckle

I missed. 6-11-13

Columbine’s seed pods

are turning brown, the same

color as the little chipmunk

that walked over my toe.  6-12-13

Cold today.

Blue jay complains.

Catbird is quiet.  6-19-13

Rock cress mustard is finished now.

Columbine has the pot to herself.  6-19-13

Columbine’s leaves rust over

the rain-pocked chalk.

Patio table still life.  6-20-13

Two catbirds,

a nest in the thick place

between the two myrtles.

Little calls give it away.  6-23-13

Yesterday the fox flew through twice.

The second time, he stopped

for a drink.  6-25-13

A gray morning.

Redbird speaks.

The first rosy sharon catches a carpenter bee.  6-27-13

The wall of green has a hole. 

It used to be full of stars.  6-29-13