We found the elk’s carcass in the morning, just downhill from the pasture fence where she lay sprawled across an iced-over stream. Carcass is a harsh word for that once-graceful animal, a cow elk whose small head and hooves made me think she ’d only lived a few years. . . .
Read moreWe are in the midst of the planet’s sixth great extinction, in a time where we are seeing the direct effects of radical global climate change via more frequent and ferocious storms, hotter drier years accompanied by more devastating wildfires, snow where there didn’t used to be snow, and less snow where permafrost used to be a given. . . .
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The children wade naked and thigh-deep
in stone-colored water. They duck under
and come up flinging drops from their hair.
Wind raises gooseflesh on their arms.
Touch is the miracle, wrote Whitman.
Touch is the earth’s language and the children
speak it. . . .
for my eulogist, in advance
Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.
Can’t you see I’ve turned away
from the large excitements,
and have accepted all the troubles? . . .
No one knew when the stork had arrived. At first, it stood on the pier, its back to the town, looking out at the horizon; it appeared to be consumed or at least distracted by the sea from which it came. The pier itself was covered by kelp and long, . . .
Read more“Y’all put that gator right back where you found him or I’ll pepper your asses with 177s.”
I aimed my Daisy right at Butch, the more chicken-shit of the pair.
Mitch held Dragon by the jaws while Butch tried to steady his lashing tail.
“Feeding him Atomic Fireballs again, . . .
Read moreAt the joining of the Dommel and the Aa in the southern part of the Netherlands, a town was built and called “Bosch” after its forest. It prospered, rivaling Utrecht. In its churches there was music. In town there was money. The two rivers were combined to make a moat for protection. . . .
Read moreOn November 18, 1978, an event unique in human history took place. In a remote region of Guyana, an elemental, disintegrating country just above the equator in South America, 913 followers of a captivating American preacher named Reverend Jim Jones joined in a mass suicide, drinking poison [or having it injected into them] and lying down quietly to die together. . . .
Live as if you were already dead.
—Zen admonition
All I can do is be me, whoever that is.
—Bob Dylan
1. About the Dead Man and Dylan’s Names
. . .
I paced back and forth in my art studio, not taking my eyes off the drawing on my long white desk. I ’d just finished penciling in the eyebrows of a third African tribesman. A group of them stood on an above-ground subway platform, looking solemnly at men in suits who sat on the stopped train, . . .
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