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Say the fire made an offering of itself. It was long ago -- the memory has turned by now to clay. He watches his daughter retrieving her rocks from the shallows. She has washed them, it seems, has prepared them. And as he watches, she buries them not far from where the fire came tumbling down the ridge. She scrapes each hole then plants them deep as seeds. Why the Gods Abandon Us If you have ever walked along a rocky coast in winter, have watched pale December sunlight dimming along steep granite cliffs, 
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have seen whitecaps disappearing into darkness near Burnt Island, then you know. Surf wears away at rocks. Salt spray rises like a prayer. Once a boy from Indiana came home from school to find his father's prairie barn ablaze. The smoke drifted low across the corn and seemed to hang suspended near the cistern. Another night he dreamed that a bronze monastery bell was ringing somewhere in a Japanese courtyard. He rose in sleep and walked in moonlight across cobblestones until he saw a hundred paper lanterns set out before a rocky cliff. The ocean lay beneath him, as smooth yet round as beveled mirrors. He knew somehow that he was  |
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