Elk Quotes

Josh's heart soared as he got a taste of the power and endurance in his elk body.

Josh gathered his sense of injustice and faced Rodan Man-to-man, or rather, elk-to-elk, no, Netah-to-Netah.

The Holy Land is everywhere

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.

In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rock feller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighways.

Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of the little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.

A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum.

It is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost

Non...I am DANCING IN MY NUDDY-PANTS!!!' And we both laughed like loons on loon tablets. I danced for ages round the house in my nuddy-pants. Also, I did this brilliant thing-I danced in the front window just for a second whilst Mr. Across the Road was drawing his curtains. He will never be sure if he saw a mirage or not. That is the kind of person I am. Not really the kind of person who goes and raises elks in Whakatane.

All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.

Junior finds what he’s seeking in a swale between two ridges. He glasses down at the elk from a hillside aflame with autumn color. The animal strides through the clearing about five hundred yards due east, dipping its head now and then to nibble on receding grass that soon will disappear for the winter.

Behold this day. It is yours to make.

Inej cleared her throat. “You do look a bit …” “Enchanting,” said Matthias. Nina was about to snap that she didn’t appreciate the sarcasm when she saw the expression on his face. He looked like someone had just given him a tuba full of puppies. “You could be a maiden on the first day of Roennigsdjel.” “What is Roennigsdjel?” asked Kuwei. “Some festival,” replied Nina. “I can’t remember. But I’m pretty sure it involves eating a lot of elk. Let’s go, you big goon—and I’m supposed to be your sister, stop looking at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like I’m made of ice cream.” “I don’t care for ice cream.” “Matthias,” Nina said, “I’m not sure we can continue to spend time together.” But she couldn’t quite keep the satisfaction from her voice. Apparently she was going to have to stock up on ugly knitwear.

Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where.

There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which... is within the souls of men.

Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions

They laugh at this, the idea that one might keep herds of friendly deer or elk that walk happily to their slaughter whenever it's time for the human to eat meat. Some ask openly if there aren't consequences of a life so easy to live.

An elk mother, cornered, will slash with her hooves and tear with her mouth and even offer the hope of her own hamstrings, and if none of that works, she'll rise again years and years later, because it's never over, it's always just beginning again.

I did not see anything [New York 1886] to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [white man] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.

You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.

At the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.

It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.

Zo komt elke angst in de wereld, zomaar, omdat iemand op een dag besluit te geloven dat er een gevaar bestaat.

Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.

And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.

Buy for me from the King's own kennels, the finest elk hounds of the Royal strain, male and female. Bring them back without delay. For," he murmured, scarcely above his breath as he turned to his books, "I have done with men.

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.

I haven't got anything against cats. I haven't got anything against elk either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to keep one in the store so I'll have a place to hang my hat.

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.

We wanted to blast the world free of history.... picture yourself planting radishes and seed potatoes on the fifteenth green of a forgotten golf course. You'll hunt elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center, and dig clams next to the skeleton of the Space Needle leaning at a forty-five degree angle. We'll paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis, and every evening what's left of mankind will retreat to empty zoos and lock itself in cages as protection against the bears and big cats and wolves that pace and watch us from outside the cage bars at night.

All around us were people I had spent ten years avoiding--shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike. These people should be kept at home, I thought; lock them in the basement of some goddamn Elks Club and keep them pacified with erotic movies; if they want a vacation, show them a foreign art film; and if they still aren't satisfied, send them into the wilderness and run them with vicious dogs.

When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the west, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greenier and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm.

I knew that the real was yonder and that the darkened dream of it was here.

You are flowers in my stomach. Cutting me open nightly, blooming through the cracks of the ribs. I only want to be the sun for you.

Alle waarheid deed pijn, maar wel steeds meer, elk jaar een beetje meer.

Hij wilde verdwalen met haar, bang zijn met haar, hij wilde elk werkwoord zijn zolang zij maar het onderwerp van de zin was.

Know the Power that is Peace.

We staan elke dag op, doen wat van ons verwacht wordt, en gaan dan weer slapen, en dat noemen we leven. We saboteren onszelf zonder het te beseffen, omdat we nadoen wat ons ooit is voorgedaan, en dan denken we dat het zo móet gaan. En ondertussen organiseren we de dingen zo, dat we geen tijd hebben om stil te staan bij dat wat we ten diepste voelen. We vergeten wat we waard zijn en durven niet te geloven dat we het goeie wel degelijk verdienen. We vinden het makkelijker om te berusten bij ons leed, om onszelf te troosten na de pijn, dan te kiezen voor wat ons echt gelukkig zou maken.

Okay, then, what was he like? Just give me something to go on so that I have a shot at him!' 'A shot at him? Are you on an elk hunt?

How could men get fat by being bad and starve by being good? I thought and thought about my vision, and it made me very sad.

Marriage felt like a fading American institution, as relevant to me as the Elks Club. Plus, I considered myself punk rock, and punk rockers don't believe in boring societal conventions like marriage. We prefer boring societal conventions like punk rock.

While I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; For I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being....And I saw that it was holy

That boy could wear a banana leaf and a propeller beanie and look beautiful." "That how you like your boys, Kiz?" asked Cactus. "Oh yes. All my boys. I'll issue him a banana leaf and a propeller beanie at once and induct him into my boy-harem." Evie snorted. "Boy harem! Imagine - their little propellers all spinning as they fan you with palm fronds." "While they satisfy my every whim," added Cactus. Kizzy snorted. "Forget it. I don't lend out my boys." "Come on, no one likes a greedy slave owner." "My boys aren't slaves! They stay because they want to. I give them all the elk meat they can eat. And Xbox, you know, to keep their thumbs nice and agile.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream...

Elk have not been seen in Switzerland for many a year. In the interests of scientific accuracy, please strike the idea of elk from your mind. If you must, think of ibexes instead, a fierce and agile type of goat with great spiraling horns. Marmots will also do in a pinch, but under no circumstances should you think of elk. No. Elk. The elkless among you may now proceed.

Whether hunting is right or wrong, a spiritual experience, or an outlet for the killer instinct, one thing it is not is a sport. Sport is when individuals or teams compete against each other under equal circumstances to determine who is better at a given game or endeavor. Hunting will be a sport when deer, elk, bears, and ducks are... given 12-gauge shotguns. Bet we'd see a lot fewer drunk yahoos (live ones, anyway) in the woods if that happened.

Have you ever been charged by an elk, Sibling Dex?” “I … have not.” “Mmm,” Mosscap replied. It looked out at the sea. “I don’t recommend it.

His elk?” said Bran, wonderstruck. “His elk?” said Meera, startled. “His ravens?” said Jojen. “Hodor?” said Hodor.

That’s what the mother of the gardener’s boy said,” remarked Teresa; “she wanted me to have it destroyed, but I pointed out to her that she had eleven children and I had only one elk. 

We staan elke dag op, doen wat van ons verwacht wordt, en gaan dan weer slapen, en dat noemen we leven. We saboteren onszelf zonder het te beseffen, omdat we nadoen wat ons ooit is voorgedaan, en dan denken we dat het zo moet gaan. En ondertussen organiseren we de dingen zo, dat we geen tijd hebben om stil te staan bij dat wat we ten diepste voelen.

there can be no power in a square

Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.

Echte zekerheid is weten dat je geen zekerheid hebt, want dan zorg je er wel voor dat je elke dag alles uit het leven haalt.

Het moge echter eenieder tot troost strekken dat geen enkel boek nut heeft en dat elke gek er een schrijven kan.

What’s it going to be this year?” asked Willem. They were taking the train up on Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving. “Elk? Venison? Turtle?” “Trout,” he said. “Trout!” Willem replied. “Well, trout’s easy. We may actually end up with trout this year.” “He said he was going to stuff it with something, though.” “Oh. I take it back.

He said.” Jojen frowned. “This . . . Coldhands?” “That wasn’t his true name,” said Gilly, rocking. “We only called him that, Sam and me. His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men, him and his ravens, and he brought us here on his elk.” “His elk?” said Bran, wonderstruck. “His elk?” said Meera, startled. “His ravens?” said Jojen. “Hodor?” said Hodor. “Was he green?” Bran wanted to know. “Did he have antlers?” The fat man was confused. “The elk?” “Coldhands,” said Bran impatiently. “The green men ride on elks, Old Nan used to say. Sometimes they have antlers too.

Junior finds what he’s seeking in a swale between two ridges. He glasses down at the elk from a hillside aflame with autumn color. The animal strides through the clearing about five hundred yards due east, dipping its head now and then to nibble on receding grass that soon will disappear for the winter.

The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm.

Perhaps you have noticed that even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways.

In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.

I could see that the Wasichus did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother.10 This

He remembers what the spiritual visionary, Wallace Black Elk, a Lakota said – man's scratching of the earth causes diseases like cancer. He meant the mining and drilling for coal, gas, oil, uranium. The scratching brings up the things deep in the earth that should have stayed down there.

This they tell, and whether it happened so or not I do not know, but if you think about it, you can see that it is true.

And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.

Because it’s only ever been you.

When the ceremony was over, everybody felt a great deal better, for it had been a day of fun. They were better able now to see the greenness of the world, the wideness of the sacred day, the colors of the earth, and to set these in their minds.

Do you listen to the wolves, Seoman?” Jiriki asked. “It’s hard n-not to.” “They sing such fierce songs.” The Sitha shook his head. “They are like your mortal kind. They sing of where they have been, and what they have seen and scented. They tell each other where the elk are running, and who has taken whom to mate, but mostly they are merely crying ‘I am! Here I am!’

Dis nie net die dooies wat in jou inweek en deel van jou word nie: dis almal, elke enkele een met wie jy 'n entjie pad saamreis; elkeen gee af aan jou, jy aan hulle. Nooit is dit net jy en jy alleen nie. Nooit gebeur iets net NOU nie. Altyd sleep dit slierte saam. Altyd suig dit by voorbaat al die toekoms in.

Inevitable pickup trucks complete with full gun racks, chainsaws, fishing poles, and big, sneering dogs in the back, line the streets and parking lots. Meek murmur of autumn skies, Ford and Chevy outfits to roll through town, as people get ready for a long, gray, foggy winter, big, four-wheel-drive pickups with snow blades attached, the box loaded down, with a high stack of cordwood topped by a huge elk carcass, to go disheartened in the midst of wretched weather, cold, raw, continually snowing.

I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.

Zoom out and what you see is one species--us--struggling to keep all others in their appropriate places, or at least in the places we've decided they ought to stay. In some areas, we want cows but not bison, or mule deer but not coyotes, or cars but not elk. Or sheep but not elk. Or bighorn sheep but not aoudad sheep. Or else we'd like wolves and cows in the *same* place. Or natural gas tankers swimming harmoniously with whales. We are everywhere in the wilderness with white gloves on, directing traffic.

Because that's what it turned into: in front of a fine painting a viewer stopped looking and started watching, watching is more specific, watching is a hunt for something, a search, the way we search for a loved one's boat on the horizon, or an elk in the trees. Before a good painting they started watching for clues to their own life.

And what is this wild summons? What art is asked of us? The gift offered is different for each but all are equal in grandeur. To paint, draw, dance, compose. To write songs, poems, letters, diaries, prayers. To set a violet on the sill, stitch a quilt,; bake bread; plant marigolds, beans, apple trees. To follow the track of the forest elk, the neighborhood coyote, the cupboard mouse. To open the windows, air beds, sweep clean the corners. To hold the child’s hand, listen to the vagrant’s story, paint the elder friend's fingernails a delightful shade of pink while wrapped in a blanket she knit with deft young fingers of her past. To wander paths, nibble purslane, notice spiders. To be rained upon. To listen with changed ears and sing back what we hear.

The elk that you glimpse in the summer, those at the forest edge, are survivors of winter, only the strongest. You see one just before dusk that summer, standing at the perimeter of the meadow so it can step back to the forest and vanish. You can't help imagining the still, frozen nights behind it, so cold that the slightest motion is monumental. I have found their bodies, half drifted over in snow, no sign of animal attack or injury. Just toppled over one night with ice working into their lungs. You wouldn't want to stand outside for more than a few minutes in that kind of weather. If you lived through only one of those winters the way this elk has, you would write books about it. You would become a shaman. You would be forever changed. That elk from the winter stands there on the summer evening, watching from beside the forest. It keeps its story to itself.

Damn it, woman, stop offering to kill me!

Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, And it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours is long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winter’s before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot.

He burned with the need to hug her. But since their reconciliation they’d kept each other at arm’s length, as if they were both aware that to step into the murky waters of physical contact would break down the delicate dam they’d created.

Crazy Horse was dead. He was brave and good and wise. He never wanted anything but to save his people, and he fought the Wasichus only when they came to kill us in our own country. He was only thirty years old. They could not kill him in battle. They had to lie to him and kill him that way. I cried all night, and so did my father.

One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadowcat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?” He chuckled. “It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me.” He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. “But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears … and most of all, no red. The men of the Night’s Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said. “I left the next morning … for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose.

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round . . . The sky is round and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power whirls, birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

If this were a courageous country, it would ask Gloria to lead it since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart and the National Leaders we've always had are not. When I listen to her talk about women's rights children's rights men's rights I think of the long line of Americans who should have been president, but weren't. Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth. John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo. Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy." Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or Sweet Honey in the Rock dealing with Anything. It is imagining to make us weep with frustration, as we languish under real estate dealers, killers, and bad actors.

She had collided with an elk and died...At twenty-four minutes to eleven her heart had stopped pumping the blood around her body. One single muscle in a single person's body. A speck of dust in time. And the world was dead. David stood next to her bed with his arms by his sides, the headache burning behind his forehead. Here lay his whole future, everything good that he could even imagine would come from life. Here lay the last twelve years of his past. Everything gone; and time shrank to a single unbearable now.

Wees niet verdrietig, liefste, maar huil voor mij, Ik zal je tranen in me laten oplossen, ze zullen me herinneren Aan die andere, de tranen die je, heet en blij Op me stortte, toen je stralend mij doorzinderde, Toen je heersend als een man mij nam En even later als een kind in mijn omhelzing Stierf, je kleine dood, lief lekker ding Van me, zoals je keer op keer in me kwam. Kijk hoe ik voor je dans, hoe ik met elke lendenslag Een letter vorm, kijk goed, en lees die letters van Me af, leer me uit je hoofd, zodat ik elke dag jou mag Bezoeken, juichend, neergehurkt voor je gezicht, Opgloeiend van verlangen, hartslag van je, man Van je, in je mond getatoeëerd gedicht.

But then, he said, "Cute nose." Cute. I have a cute nose. And a cute boyfriend. With cute elk kisses. Also, elk do not sleep standing up. Also, female elk don't have antlers. Also, male elk (bulls) have a harem of cows. Which is maybe why elk popped into my head randomly. Me and Sadie were the cows in Heck's harem. That's weird. But it does explain why I'd randomly think of elks. Elk. Also, though, elk remind me of when we went to Yellowstone—me, Mom, Dad, Mr. Griffin—and saw elk. It was nice. Happy family. And fun. Therefore, elk make me feel happy. And that's probably the real reason for elk randomly popping into my head. Or maybe my mind is a bull with a harem of way too many thought cows! Weirdo.

Je wordt natuurlijk wel gelooid. De wereld is daar heel goed in. Iedereen begint met talent, iedereen heeft een kaarsje en dat brandt. De meeste mensen laten het uitgaan of het wordt door anderen wel uitgeblazen. Dat begint al vroeg. Een kind tekent een huis met een veel te grote zon. De verhoudingen kloppen niet, zegt de volwassene. Dan ben je al bezig aan de afbraak. Of een kind vertelt een verhaal dat niet klopt. Dat heb je gelogen, zegt een volwassene. Nee, het kind heeft het verzonnen. Je moet tegen elke wind in, in iedere storm, dat kaarsje zien aan te houden.

Imagine,” Tyler said, "stalking elk past department store windows and stinking racks of beautiful rotting dresses and tuxedos on hangers; you’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life, and you’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. Jack and the beanstalk, you’ll climb up through the dripping forest canopy and the air will be so clean you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles.

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round . . . The sky is round and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power whirls, birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds. And they were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.

But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in bloody snow.

I was still a boy when I left the Ozarks, only sixteen years old. Since that day, I’ve left my footprints in many lands: the frozen wastelands of the Arctic, the bush country of Old Mexico, and the steaming jungles of Yucatán. Throughout my life, I’ve been a lover of the great outdoors. I have built campfires in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and hunted wild turkey in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I have climbed the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, and hunted bull elk in the primitive area of Idaho. I can truthfully say that, regardless of where I have roamed or wandered, I have always looked for the fairy ring. I have never found one, but I’ll keep looking and hoping. If the day ever comes that I walk up to that snow-white circle, I’ll step into the center of it, kneel down, and make one wish, for in my heart I believe in the legend of the rare fairy ring.

I passed out cigars to the men, and we lit them with a twig caught alight in the fire and passed the bottle around. Charley was doing most of the talking, telling a hunting story from the days of elk and bison, neither of which anyone in attendance except Charley had ever seen. He made them epic animals in his story, inhabitants of an old and better world not to come around again. He then told of his lost farmstead at the old mound village of Cowee, before one of the many disastrous treaties had driven him and his family west to Nantayale. At Cowee, he has been noted for his success with apple trees, which over the years he had planted at spots where his outhouses had stood. Apples grew on his trees huge as dreams of apples. That Cowee house was old, from the time when they still buried dead loved ones in the dirt floor.

Benny took a steadying breath and let it out slowly. "Nix, I do understand what you're going through. I'm going through it too." "It's not the same thing," she said very quietly. An elk poked its head out from behind some sagebrush, studied them for a moment, then bent to eat berries from another bush. "Then why won't you tell me what it is?" She glared at him. "Honestly, Benny, sometimes I think you don't even know who I am." With that she turned and stalked away, her spine as stiff as a board. Benny stood openmouthed until she was almost back to the tree where Chong sat with Eve. "What the hell was that all about?" he asked the elk. The elk, being and elk, said nothing.

Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individuals, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking—and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority. The consensus of all serves as a proof for the correctness of ‘their’ ideas. Since there is still a need to feel some individuality, such need is satisfied with regard to minor differences; the initials on the handbag or the sweater, the name plate of the bank teller, the belonging to the Democratic as against the Republican party, to the Elks instead of to the Shriners become the expression of individual differences. The advertising slogan of ‘it is different’ shows up this pathetic need for difference, when in reality there is hardly any left.

They were Chinese vampires. They were discovered during renovation work at the Bok Kai Temple in Old Sacramento. One of the priests there told his brother about them. The brother's whatever the Chinese version of mobbed up is. Alex here thinks he's using them to distract the Nortenos and the Black Dragons long enough to take over the marijuana trade in Sacramento using the stuff they're making in a bunch of grow houses in Elk Grove." Ted stared at me. "And will the Chinese vampires be joined by legions of Korean werewolves who have been cooking meth in trailer parks in Truckee? "No. The werewolves are refusing to get involved. Trust me, I've tried to talk them into helping. They'll have nothing to do with it.

This is the lone-American type I admire, the kind I believe in, can get along with, and whom I vote for even though he’s never nominated for office. The democratic man our poets sang of but who, alas, is being rapidly exterminated, along with the buffalo, the moose and the elk, the great bear, the eagle, the condor, the mountain lion. The sort of American that never starts a war, never raises a feud, never draws the color line, never tries to lord it over his fellow-man, never yearns for higher education, never holds a grudge against his neighbor, never treats an artist shabbily and never turns a beggar away. Often untutored and unlettered, he sometimes has more of the poet and the musician in him, philosopher too, than those who are acclaimed as such. His whole way of life is aesthetic. What marks him as different, sometimes ridiculous, is his serenity and originality. That he aspires to be none other than himself, is this not the essence of wisdom?

Time and time again I am astounded by the regularity and repetition of form in this valley and elsewhere in wild nature: basic patterns, sculpted by time and the land, appearing everywhere I look. The twisted branches in the forest that look so much like the forked antlers of the deer and elk. The way the glacier-polished hillside boulders look like the muscular, rounded bodies of the animals- deer, bear- that pass among these boulders like loving ghosts. The way the swirling deer hair is the exact shape and size of the larch and pine needles the deer hair lies upon one it is torn loose and comes to rest on the forest floor. As if everything up here is leaning in the same direction, shaped by the same hands, or the same mind; not always agreeing or in harmony, but attentive always to the same rules of logic and in the playing-out, again and again, of the infinite variations of specificity arising from that one shaping system of logic an incredible sense of community develops… Felt at night when you stand beneath the stars and see the shapes and designs of bears and hunters in the sky; felt deep in the cathedral of an old forest, when you stare up at the tops of the swaying giants; felt when you take off your boots and socks and wade across the river, sensing each polished, mossy stone with your bare feet. Felt when you stand at the edge of the marsh and listen to the choral uproar of the frogs, and surrender to their shouting, and allow yourself, too, like those pine needles and that deer hair, like those branches and those antlers, to be remade, refashioned into the shape and the pattern and the rhythm of the land. Surrounded, and then embraced, by a logic so much more powerful and overarching than anything that a man or woman could create or even imagine that all you can do is marvel and laugh at it, and feel compelled to give, in one form or another, thanks and celebration for it, without even really knowing why…

Sublime Books The Known World, by Edward P. Jones The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro A Thousand Trails Home, by Seth Kantner House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday Faithful and Virtuous Night, by Louise Glück The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy, by Robert Bly The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, by Mahmoud Darwish Collected Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Andrew Hurley The Xenogenesis Trilogy, by Octavia E. Butler Map: Collected and Last Poems, by Wisława Szymborska In the Lateness of the World, by Carolyn Forché Angels, by Denis Johnson Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz Hope Against Hope, by Nadezhda Mandelstam Exhalation, by Ted Chaing Strange Empire, by Joseph Kinsey Howard Tookie’s Pandemic Reading Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea The Heartsong of Charging Elk, by James Welch Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey Let’s Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell The Aubrey/Maturin Novels, by Patrick O’Brian The Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh The Golden Wolf Saga, by Linnea Hartsuyker Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Coyote Warrior, by Paul VanDevelder Incarceration Felon, by Reginald Dwayne Betts Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa Waiting for an Echo, by Christine Montross, M.D. The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander This Is Where, by Louise K. Waakaa’igan I Will Never See the World Again, by Ahmet Altan Sorrow Mountain, by Ani Pachen and Adelaide Donnelley American Prison, by Shane Bauer Solitary, by Albert Woodfox Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, by Ai Weiwei Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters. —Tookie * * * If you are interested in the books on these lists, please seek them out at your local independent bookstore. Miigwech! Acknowledgments

Wanneer alle spelers na de gedane arbeid op de parkeerplaats voor de school in de steeds warmer wordende avondlucht bijeenkwamen om de ervaringen van die dag uit te wisselen, begreep ik dat iedereen geraakt werd door het stuk waarmee hij bezig was en we voelden dat het over de dood ging en ik geloof dat we beseften (al weten de goden dat we er niet bewust aan dachten) dat dit Wohlmans manier was om ons te vertellen dat ons, zodra we klaar waren met deze school, niet de toekomst wachtte met al zijn openbaringen, kansen en al die andere zaken die we ons hadden voorgesteld - een zee van mogelijkheden en ervaringen - maar juist het begin van iets anders, iets zonder de exploderende kleurenpracht die we elkaar hadden voorgeschilderd, hier zetten we de eerste onmogelijke stappen op weg naar het werkende leven, naar de routine, de eindeloze herhaling, de systematiek en het leven van alledag waar iedereen die vóór ons volwassen geworden was al lang deel van uitmaakte, ochtenden, werkdagen en bezoekjes aan de supermarkt en de rijen voor de kassa en de uren voor de tv of de uren met de was of koken en kinderen die je op sommige dagen liever niet gehad had en de grenzeloze irritatie over de naïeve jeugd die het had over Kerouac, de planning van de volgende ochtend, dit alles ad nauseam herhaald, slechts onderbroken door korte dagen die zich ontvouwden en dan weer verschrompelden, 's zomers of met Kerst, dagen die alleen nog extra benadrukten dat niemand ons kwam verlossen en dat we alleen maar konden hopen dat we in elk geval een beetje konden dansen op het ritme van onze inmiddels o zo voorspelbare levens, dat dat juist onze redding zou blijken zodat we niet langer zouden vechten tegen de monotonie maar die juist zouden accepteren, dat we het triviale zouden omarmen, zoals Wohlman ongetwijfeld gedaan had, tot we op een dag wakker werden en beseften dat de maat waarop we dag in dag uit bewogen, wankel en allesbehalve gracieus, uiteindelijk onze eigen hartslag was, naar, bij gebrek aan een beter woord, hartenlust kloppend van opluchting omdat we nu eindelijk in de geweldige maalstroom waren beland van identieke, voorspelbare dagen.

Meestal luistert hij voor hij naar bed gaat nog even naar muziek, maar vandaag heeft hij daar geen zin in. Hij bladert in het in wasdoek ingebonden schrift, leest willekeurige notities uit het verleden. De dagen rijgen zich aaneen, de tijd vliedt, week na week, op zondagen is de datum in rood gemarkeerd. Hij is ijverig geweest, bijna dagelijks staat genoteerd dat hij een paar regels heeft geschreven. Helaas ook vaak, veel te vaak, dat het werk hem zwaar valt, dat hij geen zin heeft, dat hij maar moeilijk opschiet. Na het korte bericht over het werk elke morgen volgen de gebeurtenissen van de dag. Bezoekers, uitstapjes, maaltijden met Katja en de kinderen, wandelingen, theaterbezoek, lectuur en correspondentie. Zijn stemmingen, zijn lijden. Zijn lichaam reageert gespannen op de verplichtingen van het leven, met pijnen en verteringsproblemen. Het leven is nu eenmaal vaak moeilijk te verteren. Waarom schrijft hij dat allemaal op? Voor het nageslacht? Onwaarschijnlijk, de notities hebben geen enkele literaire waarde. Niemand heeft de schriften ooit gelezen, ook Katja en de kinderen niet. De dagboeken uit zijn jeugd heeft hij jaren geleden al verbrand, en ook wat zich sindsdien heeft opgehoopt zal hij op een dag in het vuur gooien. Niettemin zit hij avond aan avond aan zijn bureau om de vervliegende dag vast te houden. Rekenschap afleggen tegenover zichzelf, dat is het waarschijnljk, verplichte zelfobservatie. En een steun in moeilijke tijden, ook dat.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.