Talking to the Moon
is an unusual and charming story of a Thoreau-like adventure in remote northeastern Oklahoma.
Following his university education and his service as a pilot in World War I, John Joseph Mathews returned to his beloved Osage country. He built a sandstone house on a blackjack-covered ridge in the midst of his ranch, and there he lived for ten years, stirred by a natural world that was still undisturbed by the demands of civilization. He became a part of the life that moved about his cottage.
In this beautiful account of what he saw and did and thought, Mathews describes his solitary life among the creatures of the ridge with rare perception and style.
His observations are based on the white man's seasons as well as the Indian cycles of the moon, and he discourses upon the eccentricities of man, the behavior of animals (including the communicative talking to-the-moon coyote), and the encompassing and particular beauty of his wilderness home. Even the most jaded reader will be touched by the sensitivity and generosity of Mathews' response to the natural world. To read
is to be reminded that this world once existed for all of us.