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knew shores after winter storms
left them stony, driftwood-strewn;
knew the salt-marshes, russet
in winter, where shore-birds came
from the far north. Certain days
they've had there stay in his mind,
none more detailed, none clearer,
than the day he saw the fox.
August 11, 1996
Note: The ancient Greeks saw that such places were sacred and had a goddess. You
disregarded her at your peril. She was Artemis, and as my Oxford Classical Diction-
ary
words it, `her proper sphere is the earth, and specifi cally the uncultivated parts,
forests, and hills, where wild beasts are plentiful.' Not to have been able to spend
suffi
cient time appropriately in such places would have made me waste away in the
other phases of my life.