From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

1. From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek He heaved himself down the asphalt driveway by infinite degrees, unwavering. His hideous crumpled wings lay glued and rucked on his back, perfectly still now, like a collapsed tent.

2. From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Continued The bell rang twice; I had to go. The moth was receding down the driveway, dragging on. I went; I ran inside. The Polyphemous moth is still crawling down the driveway, crawling down the driveway hunched, crawling down the driveway on six furred feet, forever.

3. From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek It is sheer coincidence that my hunk of the creek is strewn with boulders. I never merited this grace, that when I face upstream I scent the virgin breath of mountains, I feel a spray of mist on my cheeks and lips, I hear a ceaseless splash and susurrus,

4. From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Continued a sound of water not merely poured smoothly down air to fill a steady pool, but tumbling live about, over, under, around, between, through an intricate speckling of rock.

5. From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Continued It is sheer coincidence that upstream from me the creek’s bed is ridged in horizontal outcroppings of sandstone. I never merited this grace, that when I face upstream I see the light on the water careening towards me, inevitably, freely, down a graded series of terraces like the balanced winged platforms on an infinite, inexhaustible font.

6. From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Continued “Ho, if you are thirsty, come down to the water; ho, if you are hungry, come and sit and eat.” This is the present, at last. I can pat the puppy any time I want. This is the now, this flickering, broken light, this air that the wind of the future presses down my throat, pumping me buoyant and giddy with praise.

7. From Holy the Firm A golden female moth, a biggish one with a two-inch wingspan, flapped into the fire, dropped her abdomen into the wet wax, stuck, flamed, frazzled and fried in a second.

8. Holy The Firm Continued Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light in the clearing and creating out of the darkness the sudden blue sleeves of my sweater, the green leaves of jewelweed by my side, the ragged red trunk of a pine. At once the light contracted again and the moth’s wings vanished in a fine, foul smoke.

9. Holy The Firm Continued At the same time her six legs clawed, curled, blackened and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burned away and her heaving mouth parts crackled like pistol fire.