by Craig Childs
Here you are, my desert saint. I tip my head, a gesture of surrender. This is your world. I am only briefly alive in it. Your bones have been relinquished, yet after hundreds of years, they hold their shapes. They are the limbs and trunks of bonsai junipers standing against the wind, your shoulder blades praying in blow sand. This is what has become of your stories, worn down word by word until they are as elegant as polished ivory. I look in on you with my gifts of inconsistencies and longing. You are my dead man in the desert, my clarity, and I am the man who still walks among stories.
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is grateful for permission to use the following: “Beauty of Things,” copyright 1951 by Robinson Jeffers; “Advice to Pilgrims,” copyright 1948 by Robinson Jeffers; “Original Sin,” copyright 1825, 1929 and renewed 1953, 1957 by Robinson Jeffers from Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers by Robinson Jeffers, copyright 1925, 1929 and renewed 1953, 1957 by Robinson Jeffers. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. “Triad” by Robinson Jeffers, from The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, edited by Tim Hunt, Volume 2, 1928-1938, copyright 1938 and renewed 1966 by Donnan Jeffers and Garth Jeffers. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Stanford University Press. Poetry (page 122) from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Tsunetomo Yamamoto. Translated by William Scott Wilson. Published by Kodansha International Ltd. Copyright © 1979 and 2002 by William Scott Wilson and Kodansha International Ltd. “Groove Thing,” written by Tod Park Mohr, © 1992 Park Mohr Publishing / BMI. Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to Colin Wann and the Brothers V for the journeys (to the eldest, Dirk, for—willing or not—ripping open his heart for this book), to Kathy Anderson for snatching me off the subway and setting fire to my pages, to Terry Adams for combing through the literary wilderness and finding me, and, utmost, to Regan Choi for her elegance, insight, and patient hunger.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Childs contributes regularly to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He is also a field instructor in natural history, an adventurer, and a writer. His other books include, most recently, Soul of Nowhere and The Secret Knowledge of Water (Back Bay Books), and Crossing Paths: Uncommon Encounters with Animals in the Wild (Sasquatch). He, his wife, and their two-year-old son live part time in a solar-powered cabin in western Colorado. The rest of the year they are in the field, where little is known of their lives.