Otherworldliness

I walked up to the pens through the canted storm glow into the cathedral of dust the horses built over themselves with the wind and their circling and their eyes blazed that orange like the day's last light into the arena and threw their shadows around them and flickered and I got the work because how I edged up to the black and white one that likes to be a ass sometimes and I walked him down with him feinting side to side to side while his mane got all tangled in the glowing gusts and I stretched out my arms and backed him until he was in the corner but he didn’t run and I spoke to him and touched his neck flicking and nervous like lightning and when I got my arms gentle around his face and held it to my chest I could whisper to him there and I kept whispering until all suddenly the winds died down in him and the storms stilled and all their voices went quiet I can’t always make it happen like that but sometimes I can Mr. Moses walked up to me all

who the fuck are you and I said

hey Boss and he looked at me for a few seconds and he said

you run a saw and I said

sure can and he said

good I don’t need no more cowboy wahoos round here and I said

y’all got a room and he said

feed these horses and come up to the house and I said

OK Boss

at the headquarters Mauricio had Chile Colorado stewing in the big pot on the stove and he turned and looked at me and knew who I was but I gave him the sign and he acted like we were strangers nobody else was there from before Mr. Moses was drinking a beer and he said

what’s your name and I said

Major and he looked at me like what kind of name is that but he shook my hand and said

Major I’m William Moses and I said

good to meet you Boss

and he introduced me to Mauricio and Mauricio shook my hand and smiled at me and Mrs. Moses was in the living room reading the Sunday comics and listening to Emmylou on the record player and I knew right away we’d be pals Moses put me in the same room I used to share in the summers with John when the ranch was ours and I put my bag down on the boards of the floor and pulled the silver raven out of it and put it under the loose board so I could dream but then I remembered you and I had to sit down on the bed real hard and hold myself to keep all of my secret night from spilling out

I got up in the morning dark and turned the light on and the room was cool from the windows being open and the late August dark coming in and I pulled on my pants and shirt and boots and walked into the kitchen where Mauricio and Mr. Moses and another man stood smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee around the table and Mrs. Moses had a skillet full of eggs and sausage and their cigarette smoke whorled up around the tines of the elk antler chandelier over the table and Mrs. Moses said

Major this is CB

and I shook hands with the man who was skinny and tall as a Sotol bloom and Mr. Moses turned to Mauricio and said

you know the old fence at the west end with all those holes and Mauricio said

yessir and Moses said

why don’t you and Major go out there and fix that up we’re gonna need to move the mares over there pretty soon and Mauricio said

will do

the truck bumped along the road with the windows down and the morning light in the dust behind us bluer than prayer and Mauricio said still looking up over the road

I heard about Elle and I said

oh and looked down at the knees of my blue jeans because how there was always a silver knife chopping around in my heart and he said

I’m sorry Major are John and your parents OK and I said

we’re all about making it and he said

do they know you’re here and

my voice went away and he put his hand on my shoulder and took his old felt hat off the dashboard and put it on and I whispered

I’ll tell them

and we got out of the truck and he handed me some Mooremakers and we cut all the old wire down off the fence and rolled it up and put it in a big blackred mess on the bed of Mauricio’s truck and it scourged our shirts and raised up dark rusty scars and we pulled out the bright lines of new cable across the expanse and tied them onto the far H brace and hooked up the comealong and stretched them off the ground and made it where you could tap them and they’d sing wavy as Hank’s yodel and we tied them off to the close H brace and slicked them up to the posts and stays and Mauricio sang and two Prairie Falcons called down at us from where they held at the edge of a cloud

Mauricio and I redid fences for a month before Mr. Henry visited the ranch for the first time it was hot in the day and our sweat puddled into our shirts deep to where the Tiger Swallowtails landed on us to water I didn’t know Mr. Henry was coming and on the way back when Mauricio turned up the big hill to the main house my heart started flutterskipping because how I hadn’t been there since you were still here and the world wasn’t so full of all its black horse music and my heart still sometimes had doe deer lain down in the shadows of its trees like secrets I whispered

where are we going and he said

to say howdy to Mr. Henry

I looked up the hill and didn’t think I could be there but he said

he’s not a bad one Major

we pulled up into the gravel lot and the house swept out from us like a white bird to the cliff edge and the oak trees swayed huge around it in the light wind

Mr. Henry and Mr. Moses sat on the porch looking onto the valley below and when Mauricio and I walked up Mr. Henry stood and shook my hand and he said

James Henry and his voice was deeper than bullbellow and I looked up and said

Major

he looked at people that slow way like he actually saw them and his eyes were quiet and held me strong so that none of the ocean of night inside me had to leak out even though I was at our house and he turned to Mauricio and shook his hand and while I sat there and Mr. Henry and Moses talked I could feel your words coming off the white stucco walls touching my face like quail down but I couldn’t hear what you said even though I tried and Moses said to me

Major

and my eyes startled up I’m always getting woken up from something and he said

Mr. Henry wants to know if you can cut some firewood for the house and I said

yessir and Mr. Henry said

good then I’m going to go take a drive around the ranch but you all come back up for some dinner a little later tonight

Mauricio drove and CB was with him up front and Moses and Mrs. Moses were in the backseat and I rode in the bed with the dogs and Rhett was up close at my legs with his long coat and his warm and they were playing the country station out of Stockton in the cab and it came out of the yellow glow of the radio and deer floated over the fences like spirits under the high beams in front of us as we moved up through the smell of piñon smoke to the house that was shaking beneath all the weight of night and there was the first chill of autumn and the truck stopped and the dogs poured out of the bed in front of me in a falls and circled round Mr. Henry’s big lab whining and pawing and I said

come on there pups

and jumped down and Mr. Henry had the long table on the porch set and a fire in the hearth that was wide so I could of lied down in it and the mouths covering the walls moved in the flickering light like they were trying to say something but no sound came out but I tried to read what they said but they all spoke different and I couldn’t see long enough to tell but Mr. Henry sat at the end of the table smoking a cigarette and drinking wine and when he greeted us he buried the dark under the deep of his voice

evening

and he shook hands with us and gave Mrs. Moses a hug

Sharon I’m sorry my wife couldn’t help you out of being the only woman at the table and she said

please I’m used to all these men

and he poured us glasses out of an old bottle and it was wine that was like a velvet blanket and I said

thank you and he said

sure thing Major and the dogs trotted back and forth silently along the edge of light and Mr. Henry said

Major can you get the steaks off the smoker and I said

yessir

he’d cooked good thick steaks and he scalloped potatoes inside and made a Caesar and I liked that he was that kind of man that made friends with the people who worked for him and while we ate the dogs came one by one and laid down in the firelight that stayed bright because of how CB was nearest the hearth and kept throwing logs crushing onto the coals when it burned down and once I saw Mr. Henry watching the walls like he could see the mouths too but I wasn’t sure

Mr. Henry walked into the headquarters before leaving and said

you all got anything needs to go to town and Moses said

no sir and I said

give me a second and he said

I’ve got five

and I ran into my room and took out my book and wrote tell mom I’m ok on a page and tore it out and put it in an envelope addressed to John and ran back out and gave it to Mr. Henry and I said

thanks and he said

sure thing Major

I cut out the fire killed oak for three months I only cut the best trees when it was that right point of evening when the wind was always just right and the light would turn purple and flow down through the hills like water but I stopped cutting before any night got into it and then I hauled the wood down the mountain because that’s how he asked and I took the trunks and the thick boughs that hadn’t got burnt up but just got killed and I logged them and the logs that weren’t rotten I split and stacked and I got ten cords up against the adobe wall of the house before the night that I was out with Mr. Henry and Moses by the fire and everybody else was gone in and the first cold front of the year slid down over the land and sent the sparks from the fire spiraling southward about our legs and against the canvas of the coats we had on to keep out the shards from the cold and the Iron Mountain hulked further south still and we watched it pull the stars down close to it but it always stayed dark even though it took more of the light than we could and Moses was asleep in his chair so that it was just me and Mr. Henry and we’d drunk enough whiskey where our eyes turned to amber and opened up and could see the ghosts of the iron oaks up there swaying in the wind like silk and glowing darkly and he said softly

can you see them Major and I whispered back

yessir

do you know why you see them and I said

no sir

I want you to cut some logs from it

how I asked

I don’t know he said and I whispered back

I think I can figure it out maybe and he said

I think maybe you can too

I moved to the little cabin off from the main house and I forgot the silver raven but it didn’t matter because I didn’t sleep anymore anyways because the day was too bright to be able to see the ghost oaks and I kind of stole Rhett from CB not like I did it but Rhett just started sticking with me and CB didn’t care because of all the other dogs stuck with him Mr. Henry told Moses how I was going to just report to him and Moses said

OK

and I went up to the hills over the main house at night and tried with my chainsaw but it was like passing through air and I tried with my axe but it didn’t work either I kept going back but I didn’t know what to do and one day I got real sad and went down into the valley where the red oaks all bent like fire in the gusts of autumn and I strung all the biggest trees together with spiderweb to make a machine because I was trying to listen to heaven so I could hear you again but in the nights when I put my ear to it everything got all drowned by the clamor of God up there drunk and murmuring to himself in the dark and running into furniture I just wanted to hear you say goodnight like you used to I just wanted you to tell me again that I’m your good little brother and how you lovemelovemeloveme but I couldn’t hear you and the wind kept blowing and I laid down on the cold ground not remembering anything anymore except that you were here and now you are gone

I can’t figure out how I said into the receiver and he said

you can take a while and I said

alright and he said

just don’t worry too much about it and I said

OK I won’t and he said

are you doing alright out there in the cabin and I said

yessir Rhett stays with me and we keep that stove burning so it’s warm and he said

who’s Rhett and I said

he’s that red merle Aussie and he said

alright then Major I’m glad you’re keeping up I’ll see you all out there afterwhile

after we finished up dinner Moses asked me if I would shoot a deer in the morning early because he wanted to have some backstrap for when Mr. Henry came the next week and I said

I don’t have a gun and he said

you can use that 30 aught 6 I’ve got over there in the cabinet and I said

I’ll be up early

I walked down from my cabin later that night to the headquarters to grab a beer and when I opened the door into the kitchen CB was standing in the refrigerator light taking out a bottle and he said

you want one and I said

yes please

and he popped the tops and we sat down at the table in the dark and I said

where you from CB and he said

I grew up down 90 outside Sanderson and I said

so you’ve been out here the whole time and he said

I’ve been here for a while but not the Iron Mountain for long and I said

you’re family out there in Sanderson and he said

used to be but my dad died and my mom kind of split off after that I don’t really know where she is things fall down on this land kind of hard some times

and we sat in the dark and drank in silence for a while and he got up and the light spilled out of the refrigerator into the kitchen again and he got two more beers for us and I said

you know where the trapper piles up the bodies and he says 

yeah what of it and I said

them all piled and stinking those bodies they’re all through us

but I could tell maybe he knew but he wasn’t going to say and he said

how old are you

and I said 18 but he knew that was a lie

he went and got us each another beer because we were drinking too fast and said

time for bed

yeah I guess I better

I’ll be around 5:00 to get you

and I shook his hand and walked up the trail to my cabin

the cold was ringing when I woke and I got up and put some kindling onto the coals in the stove and stacked some logs on that and blew the fire going and I put on my thermals and my pants and a shirt and zipped my coveralls on over everything and there was a knock at my door and Rhett stirred up whining from my blankets with the fire flicker in his eyes and I said

come on in 

and CB walked in and said

morning and his voice made fog inside my room and he patted Rhett’s head and I said 

howdee

and he poured me some coffee out of his Stanley and I pulled my gloves on and grabbed the rifle and slung it onto my shoulder and shut Rhett in the cabin and we drove out a ways and parked the truck and walked up onto the mountainside and CB said

you stay here and glass the valley and I’ll go around and watch that other side and I said

OK

shoot a doe if you can

I nodded and lay down in the grass and watched out as the light came I kept having to switch my hands holding the binoculars because of how fucking cold it was and every time I stuck my right hand in my pocket I could feel the extra brass shells banded together to keep them from ringing

deer come out in the morning because of how they are the same color as it and you have to watch so careful because it’s like trying to see water in water but I finally got my eyes right so that I could see an old doe come through the dim and I took off my glove and switched the safety off and put the cross on her neck and the shell cracked open and the bullet went hurling out away from me to her

CB walked around from the other side of the hill when he heard the shot I don’t like killing deer because afterwards I can hear all that low thunder out of death’s horn and I try not to hear it but I can’t not after I brought it and I remember you telling me how it was what made the dogs whine in their sleep and how every now and again it gets loud so that car alarms go off in the streets I don’t like hearing the sound from it CB walked up and said

that’ll do

and we put a rope through her back ankles and pulled her up from the bough of an oak and cut her guts out and left them where they fell grey and steaming on the ground for the coyotes and CB said

Mauricio will make us some chili tonight and I said

hope so

and then I looked down at the bloody knife and I threw up on the dirt and CB just shook his head at me but I wiped my mouth off and got up and CB dropped the doe into the grass under the tree and I picked her up and put her on my shoulders and he said

come on crazyass

and we walked back up to the truck and I put her in the bed and her eyes turned to frost from the inside

the next evening I was walking water line and I heard the elks bugling at each other and I looked but I couldn’t see them because how the grey was down on the earth but then all of a sudden I saw first one and then another big bull come out from the clouds and when they walked their antlers tore up the fog so that they dragged all these ribbons of emptiness behind them through the air and I knew how to cut the ghost oaks I don’t know how but I just knew and I ran back to the truck and drove to the house and I ran in past Mrs. Moses and she said

where are you off to

but I ran past and into the room and I pulled up the floor board and took out the silver raven and I went and jumped in the flatbed that had the welder on the back of it and I drove it over to the barn and I got my chainsaw and filed all the steel teeth off it and I cut the raven into little pieces with the torch and welded them onto my chain and filed the lumps sharper than the moonlight and then I went and sat by the forest and time changed I watched the sun rise and fall and rise and fall until I lost count

I got so skinny sitting there all those days I needed the milk of your voice I needed the warm bread of your words but finally I saw the night anchor pulling across the world and it caught on the Iron Mountain and the dark stayed and I took my saw onto the hill and found the stand of ghost oaks all dark and gusting in the wind and I walked to them and pulled the saw going and set the blade against one and blue sparks burst like little galaxies everywhere and the sparks went through me like I was the one that wasn’t there instead of them and I worked the long night through and I had to keep going back and welding on more teeth because the silver wore down so fast but I cut a little stack and laid it invisibly next to the other logs by the house and at the end I fell asleep beside the wood and Rhett was sleeping there too and the night closed all its eyes and came over close and lay down against us to keep us warm

I mailed Mr. Henry a letter

I figured out how to cut it

I made a silver blade

Moses let me take a truck into town and I pulled up to The Blues where there was a fire burning out of some shitty lumber stinking up the air and someone was singing old Marty Robbins inside and people were turning on the dance floor in quick circles through the spindled light that the disco ball hauled through the cigarette smoke and I walked over to CB and he slid me a bottle of Jack across the rough boards of the table and I slugged on it and slid it back and he said

look who’s out tonight and I said

howdee and he said

you gonna have a time and I said

might turn that way

and then the warm of the whiskey went through me and the world got soft and dark and I looked up and saw her there in the glow of the can lights and she looked all alone and quiet from the others and she wheeled from me and then back again and our gazes caught together across the room in the breeze from the song and I couldn’t even see who she was with but when I tried to look away our eyes got caught up like wind knots and I couldn’t turn she had on a dress covered in horses and the song ended and another fast one was on and it was just like that that she was in my arms and laughing and we turned like a dust devil all over the place and the horses went and bucked and galloped across the cloth plains of her dress and the sea of night inside of me flashed away for then because how she took my loneliness in her hands and pushed it away she said

lets get out of here and I said

OK and she said

come on then

and we ran out to the truck and drove west down 90 out there to old Nopal where the heavens push down hard on the earth and pulse and blaze and it was just us sitting there with the truck engine shaking and she kissed me so delicate that I couldn’t figure out what was happening how the softness hit me all brutal everything bunched up and the red lights flashing on us as that train went by in the night the horn blowing so loud that the dark got ripped away and the ground shaking and we were just alone there and it made it where I felt like horses loose on a highway or like moths like grass burning and there was all that flint in us that was rubbing along our ribs when we breathed and I thought it might have been light that filled us but I didn’t know for sure I never know for sure and then she took her dress off and her body was the moon and all at once the air filled with the ghost lights swarming and near and they circled round us like little stars and brought close their burning faces to whisper to us every name of night and they passed over again and we lay there holding together breathing like we’d run miles and we grasped to each other while our shadows turned circles around us always behind us to the lights and as fast as they were there they left again and the cab of the truck exploded into dark except for the soft waxing of her body

Lucia came out to the ranch the next weekend in her dad’s flatbed because I told her about the ghost oaks and she said

let’s burn some and I said

OK

she drove out on one of those days where it was real cold out and the clouds were down low and were rubbing off on the hills so that the grass and trees turned silver and thick with frost I already went around with Moses breaking the ice off the water tanks and there wasn’t anything else to do because it was so damn cold

she came into the cabin and Rhett walked up against her leg with his head up so she could pet him

who’s this she asked

oh you mean Stinker Bell there

she’d sat down and Rhett was nuzzling up in her lap and she was making those noises at him that people make with dogs and I walked over to the ice chest and got us out some beer and brought it and gave it to her and I said

his name’s Rhett and she said

well hello Rhett and I said

he’s got two different color eyes

and she pulled me down with them and kissed me

I cooked venison and we ate and when we were done I went and got the logs from outside first I lit red oak and then I burned piñon and after that I lay the dark ghosts of the old iron oaks onto the bed of coals and I understood why he wanted me to cut them it makes the smell like a chapelfull of myrrh smoke but the warm of it doesn’t touch your skin or your face but it sounds into you and calls all the wild and tender things that hide high up on the game trails in your heart down and it makes the moon rise through the dark of you like a mother of pearl disc and all the creek beds in your soul fill up with cold water

we lay there naked in that warm on the Navajo rug in the cabin and the ghost fire came out of the stove like snow light and the small brown spiders crawled out to us through the shadows and wrapped us there in their silentest silks and we didn’t have to be afraid of anything anymore because how in that garb not even the night can see you

she stayed with me in the cabin for three nights and every word she said had a bunk where I could lay up and sleep for a night she’d say

Major

and take my hand and put it down between her legs where the warm ocean was only barely inside her and she would pull me down and as I rocked in and out of her our hearts sloshed back and forth so full of stars that death was with us too we got so close and I knew she couldn’t stay forever and that evening we walked outside and she washed the creek in her hair and then the stars got hold of her and tossed her nightward and she flew up and up and she didn’t fall and I knew how she had to leave because she was the moon but I’m getting too used to all these leavings

that night my dreams rode in in the dark their horses the color of flood water under a flashlight and the dreams breathed as hard as the horses and their breath got so hot when they whispered close it made my ears ring all I could hear was how God talked in symbols but I already knew that and I kept wincing away into my blankets because it was like when someone breaths real hard on a microphone turned up too loud but I wanted to hear but I couldn’t hear what they said and I whispered out to them

tell me if you can pray to just one part of God and maybe can He keep it secret from the other parts of Him like could I ask Him to open my dreaming eyes and help me find the heavens I hid in myself but lost

and my dreams bent their heads to me

but ask it from the gentle part of Him and not the part that’s always drunk and angry and would open all my eyes and then burn nightmares into them forever

and my dreams leaned in close

like sometimes He seems to like answering prayers as mean as He can and I just want to find the God that’s actually better at being good than us not just the one that says He is

and my dreams put their heads against my head and ran their fingers through my hair until I fell to sleep in sleep

the next afternoon I saw the fire start I knew it was coming because how the ground was so dry it smelled like rain even when I pissed it was the storm with no rain that did it I tried to stop it I said to the wind and I said to death and I even said to God but none of them were listening I was cutting cedars on the hill but I saw all the smoke column up and I dropped the saw and ran down the road and I ran so fast that my breath fell behind and I took off my coat and kept running and my mouth tasted like it got full of pennies and I found CB but I couldn’t say anything and I had to hunch over there to let my breath catch up with me

you crazy fucker he said

but I caught my breath and I told him and he said

where and I said

by the gate

he was in a valley fixing up a hole in the fence but he climbed the hill with me and he saw the smoke because the fire got big while I was running and he said

how the fuck did that get started and I said

I tried to stop it it was the storm I tried to make it go away but he said

nevermind

and ran down the hill and started his truck and raced up the road to go get the firemen I guess and I ran down the hill after him but now my legs felt funny and I said

shit

and had to slow down but I kept trying to go fast so I could find Moses but the sun started sliding down and the edge hit the earth and the fire got bigger and even though it was night now the wind kept rising and the smoke made my head ache and behind me the mountains flickered and in front of me the tree shadows swung around in the light but then I had to stop because the hills turned into a gold river and my eyes were spinning around and I had to sit down and make the world stop so I could go again and then it stopped and I ran up to the headquarters where there wasn’t a light on and I knocked on the door anyways but no one was inside and I kept turning around to see the fire get bigger and the smoke smash against the Iron Mountain

prow of the earth I whispered breathlessly up to it

I couldn’t let the house burn I had to not let it burn Elle got born there and when we were young and she’d never been too jealous of the dead she would laugh so loud and blazing white as the stars that the rooms and the halls would get full and silver and you could see them there glowing if you were out in the night and it would bring you back from whatever trouble sort of thing you were about and now after I got all the rivers in me full up with tears it’s the only place left where I can go hear the shadows that her laughing cast and not have to feel sadforever

I ran up to the dozer and tried to start it but it didn’t start because the batteries were dead because nobody had driven it since who knows but the flatbed was there so I brought it over and turned the welder on and I put the ground on the black and the lead on the red and turned the key of the dozer and the engine rolled over like a fuckcrazy horse and the lead off the welder made burning stars shoot all over the place from the battery and I jumped down on the flatbed to turn the welder off but it was already stalled 

piece of shit I yelled at it

and jumped back up on the Cat and put it in reverse and gunned it because bulldozers run fastest backwards I don’t know why but it still wouldn’t go fast enough but I turned it towards the house and the tracks that had got rusty sitting there were polished like mirrors after the heavy thing touched them on the ground and I could see the stars that were living in them and the flint under the treads burst out with sparks to light my way

I got up to the house that was glowing clear white like the moon even though the fire snaked next to it huge and orange and the smoke flowed over the hills like the world was coming apart and the wind pushed the grasses into waves and the fire was twice higher than the house when I came up and spun the dozer the treads shrieking like giant barn owls and dropped the silver blade into the earth and rammed a wide swath of clean dirt between the house and the fire and the engine all low down growled and the turbo whined and the exhaust went dark in the dark and filled the woodsmoke air near the house with diesel smell and I screamed

COME ON FUCKING COME ON

and I got one break down when the fire got there and a second break started and everything was swirling and full of bright and dark but the fire jumped my line into the meadow by the house and I tried to chase it but the wind turned it huge so I couldn’t chase it and the flame surrounded me and I killed the dozer in the middle of the firebreak and jumped down and ran into the courtyard of the house hoping that the walls would hold long enough for the flames to pass but the oaks were too huge and hot and the herd of bright red horses ran all along the floors up the walls and set the paintings on fire and I went to the fountain to lay inside it but the fountain was empty and I yelled to you

HELP ME

but I couldn’t hear you and I turned to the flames

no please no

and I ran out the back of the house but the flames were at every side and I jumped out off the deck over the cliff into the night below and I dropped and dropped and went through some tree to the ground and my head spun to darkness

I found the rock pool at the edge of the meadow that’s never in the same place twice and I got in the cool water and drank the bottle of whiskey from the stone edge and my liver turned to ember and glowed into the water and you walked into the dark gold light like from out of nothing and I knew you were my dream but how it didn’t matter and the stars still saw your face and got drunk off it and I watched them lose their ways and stray through the black up there staring down at you and you said you could talk to me for the night only but that was all and I thought that was ok it was ok and all again you held me and I was shaking but all I could tell you was about how I keep trying to build the heaven in myself so you can come be with us again but I have to make sure it’s hidden enough that it doesn’t get broken but how it’s so hard because I keep not being able to find it after I hide it and I have to start all over again and you whispered to me 

it’s okay Major   it’s alright

and your voice was quieter than smoke so I could hear and I heard you but I couldn’t keep you there and I wanted so bad to keep you there

I woke late the next evening and I heard CB and Mauricio yelling my name on the cliff top and I whistled back to them and Rhett ran down the hill to me and licked my face where I lay and they came down and CB said

you crazy motherfucker and I said

I think my ribs are busted

and he looked at the cliff and he said

yeah I bet they are

and they helped me up and half carried me and lay me on the back of the truck and my sides pulsed like shards of suns when I breathed and the house was burnt and smoldering and Mauricio got into the pickup bed with me while CB drove slow down to headquarters that was still there and they had the horse trailer hitched in the driveway I think they all thought I’d died or something because Mrs. Moses ran out crying and Moses told me how they’d followed the dozer tracks up there in the night and yelled and how I hadn’t said anything back and I said

I guess I was sleeping

my head ached so bad with all the night crashing around in it and Moses said

we got to get these horses out of here but they’re kicking up a storm in that trailer and I said

it’s because they got too much fire into their eyes and they all looked at me like they always look at me but I got off the truck and limped through the yard under all the stars that were falling in flurries now and I got up into the trailer with the horses and they stilled down and I said

close that up and keep the light on in here

Spring is cheap, but clean of sky. Long after she used to meet him on the sly. He didn’t say much, because to speak you need a voice, need lead. Among the dead there were such fresh ghosts, they were still breathing. Through their mouths. Time, time, to adjust to an other. An ether O so—No—too sweet. Intox-icated with permeability. ‘Tis nox­ ious, to eat evanescence. However steadily, however slowly. They stemmed into heady blows. They missed the stain. Of blue berries and argument. They missed their lips. The yew and the thorns. They missed. Their flaws.

O, to be stung by an errant bee. O, to sting. O, to see you again. Covered in spring.

that what they now have they once longed for.

From a letter written by a German soldier standing guard in the Russian winter in late December 1942:

“The most beautiful Christmas I had ever seen, made entirely of disinterested emotion and stripped of all tawdry trimmings. I was all alone beneath an enormous starred sky, and I can remember a tear running down my frozen cheek, a tear neither of pain nor of joy but of emotion created by intense experience.”

Unlike beauty, often fragile and impermanent, the capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful is astonishingly sturdy and survives amidst the harshest distractions. Even war, even the prospect of certain death, cannot expunge it.

Tom laughed uneasily. ‘Well, maybe like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one—an’ then—’

‘Then what, Tom?’

'Then it don’ matter. Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever'where—wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an'—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there forever.’