 Are indeed proud this year to be able to honor William Poet and printer as our 1991 recipient. Bill Everson has lived in Santa Cruz County for many years. He's generously shared his artistic talents with literally thousands of Santa Cruz County citizens and his well-deserved national reputation has enabled Santa Cruz County to be known far and wide as we all who live here know it as a wonderful place for talented and abundant artists to live in. Tonight we're going to honor Bill Everson. We are going to have two colleagues profile aspects of his life and work and finally we're going to be honored by hearing him read to us from his works. So we'll begin with the honors. I'd like first to welcome Marilyn Hansen who's representing Senator Henry Mello. Marilyn. Senator Mello couldn't be here tonight. He's on call for budget hearings in Sacramento which he knows all very important to all of us. And so he asked me to be here to present a resolution to William Everson. It's my great pleasure to do this. The resolution summarizes in very few words a life of a man of many, many words a master poet and hand printer of great distinction. Thank you. Next in line is Sally Johnson representing assembly member Sam Farr, Sally. Assemblyman Sam Farr also couldn't be here but he wanted very much to commend William Everson on his ability not only to create words and inspire us that way but to imbue our community through the students he's taught with an aesthetic that was all his own. Thank you very much. And I'd like you to welcome Gary Patton, county supervisor of Bill Everson's district. In words that we can all read in one of William Everson's hand printed poems which is in the case right opposite the elevator on this floor in the county center. He said this about two redwood trees located in Kingfisher Flat and Davenport in the land where he lives. They felt the demon of fire lick its running tongue up their shaggy skin and not flinched, scorched but unscarred in the long warfare the stress, tension, shaping fuel to fire, a life flux of their kind. It seems to me as we celebrate the artists of the year we celebrate the purpose of art for all of us which is to help us in our lives indeed like the redwoods to shape our fuel to the fires which we confront so we can burn bright and we do so like the redwoods by sending our roots deep so that we constrain upwards always to the high embrace which is the name of that poem. I am delighted to honor William Everson whose roots go so deep and whose embrace go so high. I have on behalf of the Board of Supervisors a proclamation honoring William Everson as the 1991 artist of the year in Santa Cruz County. I'm hardly a representative of our congressman Leon Panetta but I do have a letter from congressman Panetta congratulating Bill Everson. And finally I'd just like to show you the perpetual plaque to which Bill Everson's name has been added which is on permanent display here in the county building listing all our artists of the year. Bill you don't have to take this away we'll keep this one. Next we'll have our profiles Mr. Everson and first I'd like to introduce Gary Young fine printer in Santa Cruz County and also a connoisseur of poetry. Gary. Twenty years ago I was an undergraduate at the University of California here in Santa Cruz. I was going to be a poet and I was on fire with the idea of it so you can imagine my excitement when I learned that William Everson was going to come on our campus and teach. I thought here's finally someone who will be speaking my language. I remember the first time I sat in on his birth of a poet class I was shocked to discover that he was speaking a language that I didn't know. And in these twenty years since I listened to him speak then I feel that I'm just now learning the art of translation. I know that I'm not alone there were many of us who never accepted credit for that class. I I worry now that maybe this was affecting your your salary at the time Bill I hope that wasn't the case. But I felt very strongly I did not want to contaminate what was happening in this class with the protocols of class cards and all the rigmarole that the university asked of us. I wanted to listen to Bill speak on my own because what he was talking about was so profound and so moving that it paled the rest of my university experience. And I felt that getting credit for listening to Bill lecture would have been like getting credit for watching the clouds. I went away for graduate school and while I was gone Bill started printing and opened the line kiln press and his vast knowledge of the black art to students. I was never a printer under Bill but I have I count many of my dearest friends were students of Bill so I feel that I've gotten the reflection of that as have many. Bill's father was a printer grew up in a print shop went back to printing at the conscientious objectors camp during World War two and from the very beginning turned out masterpieces there's no other word for it and I think it's fair to say that not since Blake have we had the perfect marriage of poet and printer that we have in Bill. We are very fortunate to have an opportunity not only to hear him read tonight but to observe his printing. Someone as spiritual and as sensual as Bill it seems natural that he would become a printer there is really nothing quite as voluptuous as holding a type stick in your hand that's heavy with a poem and Bill has shared that with a whole generation actually two generations starting during the war and then again at the University of California. His books I think particularly of the privacy of speech and his Psalter which is generally conceded to be one of the most beautiful pieces of printed art of the century or any other century. At Santa Cruz he led the students there in the creation of masterpieces American Bard and in Cyprus and Granite. Five years ago the printers chapel a group of printers which I am a member most of whom were students of Bill's had a show here which traveled to Chicago and to New York and Bill was kind enough to write an introduction I would like to quote a piece of this forward. When I came to Santa Cruz in the early 70s I was aware of the quickening body of writers sprung up almost overnight around the University and I was happy to join it but that was not the reason I came. I came because an ancient hand press stood unused in the foyer of the University library and cried out for consummation in a noble text. The articulation of the word the physical articulation of the word has been the root of Bill's profound influence here and I can only join the many others in thanking him for that. The next profile will be given by Jim Houston Jim if I may have just a moment I would like to recognize you as a previous recipient of our artist of the year award please give a hand to Mr. Houston and we have several other previous award winners who are here tonight to honor Bill Everson just a moment. I don't know where they're all sitting I'll point out the ones I do first of all Lou Harrison Chuck Hilger in the back by the door the Cabrillo Guild of Music is represented by Tom Fredericks and Ellen Primack I don't know where they are in the hall back in the hall and the cultural council of Santa Cruz County is represented by Lynn Magruder she's in the back corner there and finally Tandy Beal said she's out of town and can't be here tonight. So now Jim Houston yeah okay thank you Bill Everson has distinguished himself in so many admirable ways and it's it's really hard to know where to begin talking about his life and his work as we all know he's a poet of international renown widely read and widely awarded as Gary Young just described for you he's a he's a world-class printer who's who's inspired a whole generation of younger printers to carry on the flame of his of his of his heritage he's a scholar and he's a literary historian our foremost expert on the life and the work of Robinson Jeffers and like Jeffers he has been a celebrator of landscape and seascape and thus he speaks with a particular resonance to those of us who here on the West Coast because this is his region in the hillsides of the long coast range and in the valleys and on the beaches and in the beaks and the cries of the shore birds he's found some of his richest imagery what I am most compelled to pay tribute to in the few minutes I'm going to take here is the enormous spiritual achievement of this man since I believe that is the source of all that is followed I first met him as Gary Young did about about 20 years ago soon after he came down here to take a position as poet in residence at the then recently established Kresge College at UC Santa Cruz I soon realized as I know a number of you here tonight also have realized then I had met a spiritual father this recognition had to do in part with Bill's charismatic presence and personal power it also had to do with the fact that he is as I am a native Californian with strongly felt roots in his home region perhaps his great patriarchal beard had something to do with his effect on me but more profoundly as I came to know him I saw that here was a man of conscience who set a very high example and here was a writer who had done something that is if I can use one of his favorite terms archetypal he had found a way to join the life of language and the life of the spirit as a vocation and as a calling and this spoke to me in a very deep way why did it speak to me well as it happens I grew up in a in a devout and churchgoing family I won't say which church the important thing is that all our religious activities consisted of words prayer scripture reading exhortations sermons and songs our communications with God were made of words and I know this had a subliminal and lasting effect even though I left that particular organization behind by the time I was 18 the role that language could play stayed with me the idea that words can somehow move you a long good path toward salvation that words have an integral part to play in this process the gospel according to st. John begins with a sentence that spells it out for us in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God more than any other writer I have known William Everson has gone the distance with the implications of this sense pursuing the connection between language and the sacred and and our participation in that as writers and or as supplicants as seekers a lot of literary work in a lot of work you will find an implicit sacred dimension Bill Everson has been marvelously explicit making his own quest his major subject giving voice to his own dialogue with God as he has explored the hazards of holiness in the mid 20th century the struggles of the flesh and ultimately the sanctity of the flesh as well as the sanctity and the violent mystery of our Western landscape he has given us an abundant and luminous body of work that is I don't want to use the term religious here because that always sounds to me too institutional but a body of work the charts his own singular spiritual journey a journey carried out in the heart and also on the page before he moved to this county he had spent 18 years in the in the Dominican order during which time he became famous as brother Antoninus and distinguished himself as one of the foremost Catholic writers of our era he left the order in 1969 he settled in swan Davenport in 1971 and since that time he has become famous again or in another way as William Everson it has been an amazingly productive period by anyone's measure since he's been here he has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Poetry Association a body of work award from the Penn Center USA his monumental tribute to the poetry of Robinson Jeffers granted in Cyprus which is on display right outside here in the corridor was named one of the 70 best printed books in American history that is in the history of American printing in addition during the past 20 years he has published 18 titles or 20 or 21 I can't keep track of them all the masks of drought from which he's going to read tonight Arc type West his landmark study of the West as a literary region the veritable years which won the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and he continues to write he is currently in the midst of a long family chronicle and verse entitled the engendering flood the first volume of which just came out last year it's really an inspiring combination of creative energy and spiritual vision that has enriched all of our lives and tonight we have a chance to let him know how deeply we have treasured his presence in our midst for these past two decades it is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce to you the 1991 Santa Cruz County artist of the year and one of the great American poets of the 20th century William Everson I'm too much of a hammer even if I've stumbled into the mother of all the words of ceremonies but I'm glad to be here Christ the other prophet is not that on it in his own country he ought to know the other comes to the prophet there's no equal except in his own home town there's not a man that's just so close to his roots but he seems invisible to his own area in his own time life goes on around him he absorbs it all sleeps on it dreams on it and then speaks I want to thank you for making this possible darn sir Christmas Eve night of night and big creek is on the move that the equinox tempting rains toyed with us teasing an offshore at sea Christmas Eve night of night and big creek is on the move at the equinox tempting rains toyed with us teasing an offshore at sea the undisciplined standby blocking the river not the great face salmon sculpted the trough it means no long genetic dream asthmatic slumber of the unfulfilled weight in the moment of the first time the river tongue in the seas of all the strength in the swamp first incremental prostitute vegetation the party purging the veins of the cleft mountain then a month of drought he imposed itself the turbid summers condy and serility drying the glaze sucking the flow back into the hill that just the mountainly grudge what it gave call back his gift summoning them home and high-large yes he patterns of his great advent broke dry December harsh on the hill no sign of crowds on the steely horizon but solstice brother aspect in North West where he shook the last lives there the government hailstones rattling the spindles under the little little crowd then the wind swung south and the Nimbus struck 1000 miles storming down the English coast 48 hours of bitter vertical rain water falling like the spurge of God the squandering of heaven as if forever on the mountains and the dawns as if forever on the river forks and creeks as if forever on the vast watershed it's here declimities it's seaword pitching slides thirst shunk on the slopes of the parts ridges even the dark harsh pulsation of night the creek gorge didn't turn during his logs hit one another shoot that blood rather than wait to the sandbar on the sea ripping a chain channel out of it out to the future the space beyond time on the eve of the coming and Christ the principal in the purpose splits the room in his shadow of birth got off impressive wings it's under the sheer knife thrust of the hatchet stroke of his own blade then the shot slap high up hurtling shape hitting sick mansion awkwardly great job shot knocked out of the sky awkwardly tears touching it but touching it twig but I can in red nails his fierce front enters close in on him snarling like cat standing through the takes off I'm certainly fighting these pursuers like things will feel at peace following him out abruptly the catch in his client morning sunlight calmly descent three days car sores on but poor thing with a horizon some dark approach your forecasting his presence or a movement out there from the larger life the nation of the world maybe my own dark thought a sudden impulse impunge in the spirit moment the intruding to be hurried for it unable to challenge that person or something more somberly bloody some reflexes a life force in consonant with the whole and hence sub trucey but none of them and you know one way to know but something was meant in the visionary dream a movement from beyond the cosmic hole was registered here in the winged fashion the snarling beats counterforce challenges but you know they'll never know become it was swept from consequence evicted from shattering out what winners are now the dry all the long season with carol frost gips to knock the coast like flange nettle bent like the sea above the tree top twisted branches that start quite light you know shriveled creek bed rock of the air run naked roots obscene the grinds who flaking rock the state of torrents and early last evening a thin drizzle gaining toward death or dark drop it low hanging clouds there's belly on the rain plan all night long the thirsty slopes drank straight falling water soaking it up killing those tilting deep shelving scenes blue veins in the mountain zigzag surfaces a fracture chair dawn plan and the rain fell to run up the end you rise with the light sally down to the stream this touch fresh water for a kind of blessing you find instead a river of ink all the horrid of tributary tea treat those catchers of relief gift the strip of elder and the sweat of fur accurate shifts of every panel and moral the revelant mirror and leaves of the bottle all that all in spun opulence thoughts goes down and ruthlessly squandered four months back you rock where it fell now crawls to the sea at liquid vial you look up at last any wondering way and exclaim softly right and out his men's ring something in your voice a tremor there tells of the needs of a womanly pulse the deep sensing it's in a very pan it's soft like this looking I see indeed it is true these like dead cells long held back in the fridges room again now the flow under the rain of deep fencing just right if we knew them for me it has run off but my heart purges touching you and creeped out in the same impulse I'm healed the frost woman and water in the blood flow blackbird sundown high ridge ranch back of the barn the viral clicker the red-winged blackbirds in the late afternoon they cluster on the fence post please them barbed wire telephone lines any proximate person living in the populace gleaming the fading light didn't scarlet on the glistening black intensely alive they falling construct chatter the twangy blackbird town jubilant in the bird's out evening a sudden hunt mr. tension the sound silence drops to stun terror and all explodes every bird for itself up down out in the way well over the ridge the shoulders of flight massively outstretched a hunched body tense with hunger grab a little need the great horned owl flies impeccably in wide-staring eyes picked on her pray instantly every bird recovered bringing back to the defense they converge on her they rack at a protest a squall of invitations when deterred she stands the iron plunges into this oat thicker behind this one the defenders the meadow beaks the stabbing and yanking its glorious snatched feathers dragging her side and tries to immerse her half dead flesh and ripped in each fit the malignant face swinging right and left but she looks down at the yard bearing down her confronted again the red wings close on her railing and scrolling they're punishing beats a fury of reprisal she shrugs them aside contemptuously and pauses the moment ugly, unbridled, triumphant and then she takes off and red profile humped in departure infinitely unhurring she clears the corral skims the fence and it's gone and if they're going to dust drop a moment before right late night glimmered now darkness swoops on the land red wings circle and descend seeking down Bruce pulling their shattered world back together setting into the ilk stick at 15 charge three out in the woods the teeth three hours and eight fruits one fruits twice to start the two must be the harsh she does not reply the silence is the answer to the harkening dead listening for pipe and pipe is no more we're going to raise the darkness just like a wing the earth kill titans the qualms and talons the west gray breed that kind of critic said that he was invading all the young summer the gray breed prospered the new breed ladies early enjoying the pace took over the canyon they still are trying black bright sporting this razor sharp profile they proved ever crowning whatever it costed must pass inspection all abuse holding trucking and cuttings in big feet it's better about the canyon than we enjoyed that on stream by the meadow our creek side neighbors shot them with guns and hung the seed bodies in the apple trees to scare off rubbish here under the towering quantity of red ones we let them live and suffer their dollars and indeed at very brave and discreet them after the gloomy three southern winter the jaybird would be right that feels a definite need i have in fact done so far in complicity as to scatter crumbs on an old stump with those in it swooping rude iridescent streets hanging through the slant shafts of the sun between column and wood they rock us but by those my guilt will be mine if the cats are not amused talking to the yard they endured that unreach nastily they bombed from behind the car slathered and there's our thing often they scam the sky the trees the hedging zickers possessed of a trouble rage the passion apparently helped hopeless given the jay's street opportunity but mercenaries never the less corrosive desire clenched to the heart against the wrong deprived accounting the great day of feline reproduction meantime the jays cursed back and streaked in hearing the early afternoon the arolesian band is trickling jay got down from the trees to pick up a cricket and he's in the grass pumping in at his long legs for a quick takeoff he speared his game with nice precision boiled in his beak the hapless insect wigglin strode intrigued jay let it squirt then flipped in his eye pounce stabbed twice aren't fully fine but all unnoticed in the wild summer day the black tom got his wits together a swing under the hibachi stand the stealthily forward failed twitching suddenly the jay sensed him wanting like to explain to those long legs that he did out the crickets the old boy in his beak too late too late right in the east the black tom caught in full stretch in the rush and put off the ground enjoying your way one terrified squawk and the cricket spinning and broden can't hit the grass together and feathery tuffa the end the mad scrambling end and the clutch triumph but closed as a long life gamble not yet not yet expressed under the paws of the gate jay's head struggled out preaching piteously jay breed responded converging from thicker than scrub and it's all stands a redwood in the stream side of it they closed the end the long flight angles plain down not jockeying now for scutted promise that's looking for life the only life they know the pejorable breed weaning above the taxpayer they dance like green devil the black tom fiends up at them his neck trained his white teeth gleaning behind his red lips his eyes the yellow fire under his feet the caught praying lord seriously the long women the life to life that's probably what the cat tried in from the western woods first little squeak leads to the living he snatched the plate from her brother's paws distracted by jaybury but she too dolly she too toyed at that pleading life and her bigger sister breeding wings snatched it away and with one pinch of her jaw crushed the black chested head into the all fell still the fierce clamor hushed the yard deeply silent and friggin pants the jay's looked down stunned shaken then the parent bird gave the shot tuff tuff a drunk signal termination and they asked the car the cats ignored what they caught that the tuber remains small wing flurry of the spent cyclone scattered in the grass and for me something within was held suspended extravagant episode suddenly quenched like an engine either slashed on my heart i picked up the several resplendent wings and stretched them to let the light fall through translucent blue in the wild setting and the elegant tail that had put it in death and knocked one and the final gesture the elegant flaw flipped through the sky i took the new minister of these inside the house to dry on a leg well placed the iridescent mess he throws in the room revealed from behind the screen of nature the life of john the front was the vibration that trails through the rooms as they wrote more than and clings yet to my hands like mountain visitors a stick of blood like my fingernail pasting i imagine it's all at the moment there's no more outside in the mind of the day the black tongues between the teeth of the body stand and pick up his coat touch the swagger can't sniff it out of the fetch of the jay invested his movements with this is part of what animal cunning is like the feline lip he's not clean as a mingling whistle the other thing we just do is other than the grass like room in the fern whatever death is the jay bird learned it with the black tongues in the room toiled in his contradiction on the imminent satisfaction of the life otherwise blank as his seamlessly scan the jayless sky and not going here it go down i'm reading my way straight into the book i usually do it while i'm talking but tonight that seems better to read the poem steelhead incipient summer scorched at the sun and the great steelhead shows up in our creek his eyes in the pool the shallow basin of a thin rock we're at impossibly waiting ten days go by in stilling anger the presence is inscrutable lost it didn't lose it might have been a mistake stilling anger the presence is inscrutable no one around here recalls such a thing steelhead man locked in summer for the tag end of april season the last of them under a like all salmon rising in winter to diet spawn steelhead commonly rigged back to speed climbing the river path year after year continuing continuous the track the journey joined in in general the will the life thrust the twist this aberration what is this meaning and why here deeper hideout above and below where salmon and steelhead like it to spawn await their time those same deep holes our perfect places to light out the drought were such his purpose but i don't know dangerously exposed in winter pain water he lies alone and waits and passively waits even last night i was simply arose broke my way down to the scarred slopes to a shallow pool i knew it for his the moon give us back right to see by sensing him there i made vaguely out alone on the bottom like a sunken stick no like a god's done monk prostrate in his cell in an eminatic shape creeplessly intent daunted i left him alone in that hapless place and cut back to bed to go down in the dawn seeking him out of the midnight dream holding him there in my mind's eye still pointed upstream smelling the high headwaters were all about him the dance of light sweet raptors for yonah give you with the light the balls fly double and the star in a spasm of joy the mayflies breathe above on the bank our lap is orbit massively in heat here's your elk on rubber the elk on the hill and will not heal well under the weir the tangents crazy gnome of these waters ponderously grapples his list of consorts all feverless late only myself stooping to thalamus is meeting here knows the tightening there is what if time pretends i dare not yet but much or little brief or prolonged in this reckoned and present i am favored in my life honored in my being and women in my faith and heretic gesture he sounds the death tank of all abnegation witness to the world segregated wrenched out of contact bearing the ups the suppressed restlessness of all this juncture consumed in the abstract dimension this bloodline for the warriors out of time out of season out of place and out of purpose in the electrical fire he burns in my dream and falls me from sleep i'm hardly surprised if i'm by the water this gallery remains where the rafting is flying toward guilt of thin devoured the life sustaining flesh and left in the clay the faint skeletal imprint as fossil etched in stone spans time likeness the glyph of god cutting the fire at break brace yourself for this one mowing the east field under the ridge i wade the wind event ribsized out rusting in the barn swings in the sun ancient blade of my wife's great-grandfather don't drown from the dust of seven years i have set in the grass they don't make this they don't make them like this anymore this little girl cackled a smith punched about the spectrum grindstone counting across the harbour line and the flare of spark pause that on the blade wiping off rust in sudden silence the wedding ring the wedding band he wore on his finger chimed fine steel tackling his head cocking his head like a listening road he slashed up a file and wrapped again hear that how many are spying that turn when she shivers his bike's harsh laughter the old timer's got a name for it something he cut the power stepped down from the bed they call it the moon and death and that hunger vibrates up to crooked stockage when the grass reels i feel his hundred night's arms stroke on stroke rising it sings in my shoulders my collarbone rings to the pulse of it the ravenous steel and i swain with it made one with it wheeling among the standing firm goat footed tramping tall bracken ruthless the radiant flowers iris wild orchid leper dilly the flesh and shimmering splendor of life and then the honing that stone and steel kiss each other they crave itself they lick their lips greedily together like reckless lovers whereas the whore knows the man i have to pull them apart mad size this is in the bed the snake denying loans in the air all the grunt of lovers biting each other stroke on stroke coupling through the health it makes the sex growl in my groin to calm him down wild iris billy alone in the shutter all the women in my life sprawled in the weeds drunk in death the rattlesnake august the ravenous winter week on weeks unedging the hills in this phosphate grip summer broke dry the tightness of heat punched the sterile coast a pierced parking no fraud intended to lie the shred of fire stung the wrestling hair like midsummer moon leaves later draw her then late one dusk our labrador bits logged home half lane leading a little under the jaw that we thought nothing of it likely stuck on the thorn morning found her prospect the head swollied hugely swollen the throat hemorrhaging blood snake bite said the vet and she's too far gone tonight she will die we stared at each other rattlesnakes in big creek canyon unheard of but the vet shook his head just got them dropped us forces him down from their mountain damage this creek water with no places this year no snakes ever then seen him before and they're not done yet now with night dropping we sit in the last late unnatural silence waiting the friendly scratch at the door we know they're not come this loss is a wound tearing the sensitive fabric of our life and it aches in us we think of the snake out there in the dark lurking the vibration of evil toiling under the roots of trees alive beneath stones listening I see tears blind your eyes tonight I know you'll tear my snake to them down from the wall and burn it bitterly your lips moving your eyes blue eyes I do not begrudge it your way is the best for two themes contend here the loss and the members double gang of the twisted heart we brace for disaster a vast conflagration a holocaust born on the eastern path sweeping down to the sea burning house sites and bridges driving it driving the coastal population out under the roads it is yet to happen rather the subtle dissimulation riding secretly into the warm nest to spit them in because suns watch destiny clear on the top and the fire must send something displaced did it man's life take the friendly take his friend and companion whatever he loves but be taken let's go leave the table step out under star smelling dryness in the air and death the presence of death worship in the dark where are you buried by heat possessed of the thought desperation the serpentine inch living down from some cool commodious hole higher up he descends speaking water water raw slate plays third for he too loves life he too craves comfort smells it comingly out when theta cost rakes his lips and stabs back see all this shimmering graceful presence with swaying below the creek bank halfway down don't make ruffle wood come winter i bring the blade wiping it handing it gingerly sighs and acts as i understand but the chainsaw what governs them the mechanistic fury the annihilates god i hear him moaning there drawing the lovely elders down calling them i feel the hunger of death calls in his lines crumble in his shoes i smell his breath stepping the squat metallic beast on the ground i get to start it then once then twice definitely roar them engine grabs cost grabs again then sells into it a rotation snore holding it forth in tense hands i approach the tree putting my way to the vine tangle cautiously stepping as i move the leaves of the snout rose ahead snuffing for pray i place the blade choosing the woman's smooth bark the naked skin i figure a thing finger crooks and the chain leaps forward shoes right flat so i'll just pour it up to my feet bridge whispers under jagged gash like gore like flowing blood cutting in close i lean on the steel the blade whining the tree starts over then hangs there hovering on his axis death in its lane the woman is rushing the wind over here in the spring the swimmer in the creek i scramble aside watching it topple with a shattering crash that hits the heaviness that's happening here welcome to cross the dragon led with twist crazily but dropping rock dropping skyward i stand there staring the hushed off whispering in my hand asking asking next number two sheared through the trunk it drops without a hitch they push over comforted now i turn to the third the shrill soft wine steel teeth carrying i'm very down on it forcing it to blade snarling at last it goes over as it crosses it crashes across skinning the others the left foot's wide and spins towards me startled i step back one half step back into nothing bringing myself i lunge forward i did for balance but the blade stooped suddenly i feel a terrible insinuated plucking up my knee picking up my flesh it is a chain the nipping incisor the chipping teeth just over my leg the blue thing hovering floating there all this passion suspended in check eager to count the fall now he's the beast up falling back blade roaring i hurl it aside and go down the anzong granite contains spewing sparks the engine chattering right on my back i struggle up and fall over i cut this weight then i look down crystalline terror i see the nick of sharp sharp teeth it has to cross my knee the dreadful angle of the on the blue denim white black thread done i pull on up my jeans looking for blood the target area all decaps make and try how to scratch the sense of release delivers me then the dizzying faintness something clutching my throat taking i get to my feet leave the beast when it lies and hobble home pouring myself a stiff one i belted down her off looks like it hits like a fist still after then i hear the shivering glass chip my teeth all evening long using along the family away the house empty i sit my whiskey in the field of it the rock leg hoping for something no longer there something gone all evening long the wrong next day i hobble it out on my pitiful stump something is finished something cleanly done sprawled on the creek bank the trees lie untouched i have no appetite for the saw i might have died there under those all there's a blood to death before i helped him but that is not in the mind what is there is an absence a simple loss the back of the leg perfectly sound they hobbled up not the gilster the members swung from my hip not even like a pig and i think there's three graves finally under hanging rocks up scott creek canyon we clearly might graze all pioneer women peaceful in the sun but if i'm them according to legend the man's leg is buried going off long ago by a south physically protecting her cub and solemnly interred in the quaint pioneer faction destination the name member reposes in the mind's eye it glows in the ground inseminating the female presence of instinct with seed like a seer like a seer it's just all a sputant in-depth or it's a storm-struck hobbyist but if i get it under the female fury they're swinging flat and using like that my fingers broke down feeling fumbling but while there's no longer there only the absence only the emptiness the blank truncation the falling of the three elders the terrible stone thank you very much using buck shots through the lungs and made it out of the brush and halfway to the stream before he fell the legal hunter never followed through what dropped in the middle died where it lay i'm noticed by any same two red bulls since in that field the following day a great black bird rose up when we came which clumsily off the wings made for soaring baffles now in this ham named earlier this deep forest field late that night the coyotes found him he heard from afar the yelping chorus clamoration of the feast my high son whipped me to the winning of time the brevity of life and the next morning a great bird was back with a dozen others the vulture in horn ghouls out of hell they perched on the carcass hanging each other out at the plucking the rhythm at the plucking helps me in the gobbling the rhythm of the gas our abrupt arrival sent them hissing and lost the circle in the light teaching and balancing on the tall fur tops the teasing to abrogate their ancient place that their ancient prerogative their ancient place their ancestral place at the sharing of the kill two days later the sentinels stood over the tarn and scattered remains bellowing the gobbler's lee lowing solemnly implementing the passing away of all slot of hoops kind mourning the death of their similar comrad little cousin of the woods we paused there disbelieving and spoke to them as best we could they stared back uncomprehending not to be consoled chagrin we trudged on the following weeks found nothing much but a tuned shin bone and a scrap of pies no birds in the sky no movement in the woods nothing but the sparse pasture the two and the two red bulls classically cropping the length cover and emptiness in the air then the changing here got a leaf plowing these are noxal rains replenish the earth in the body pin of the buck the first green grass thickened the bronze and we said the cycle is complete the episode is over but the silence that hung about that place was haunted the presence of something anciently ordained where we unwitting acolytes with the birds and the bulls the great listening mountain of love for a witness the sacrificial host between the river and the woods has no smell has no smell oh we can't open the door okay thank you Cliff Ross since his love oh thank you and I had breakfast with you and Cliff on your birthday a couple years ago but there's a wonderful reading excellent thank you thank you Bill thank you again yeah you got Bill I was a student of yours a few years ago and because of your class I made I published this book myself and I wanted you to have a copy of it oh thank you