of some small bird. He couldn't identify it. Now, still
buzzing, the bird approached in stages, keeping hidden,
causing no movements of the leaves that might
give away its position, but keeping on the move and
both scolding him and sending out the news
of his presence here.
up on the trail. The U.S. Forest Service built
the trail, he reminded himself. Trail that leads on
into these mountains -- and then on back
down to the narrow dirt road, that takes
you down to the locked gate, where the blacktop
begins, that takes you winding back
down toward.... His sense of things here today
was temporary. Well, so was any sense of things.
He thought of the phrase `the lightning fl ash
of reality' in a van Gogh letter.
the trail along the main fork, nearing
a stretch of the stream he considered his.
You reached it by a hard-to-make-out
way through the scrub. He told no one
about it, he'd never seen anyone else