Words Were All He Knew;

The Horse Could Not Do Without Manhattan. It Drew Him Like A Magnet, Like A Vacuum, Like Oats, Or A Mare, Or An Open, Never-ending, Tree-lined Road.

Winter Then In Its Early And Clear Stages, Was A Purifying Engine That Ran Unhindered Over City And Country, Alerting The Stars To Sparkle Violently And Shower Their Silver Light Into The Arms Of Bare Upreaching Trees. It Was A Mad And Beautiful Thing That Scoured Raw The Souls Of Animals And Man, Driving Them Before It Until They Loved To Run. And What It Did To Northern Forests Can Hardly Be Described, Considering That It Iced The Branches Of The Sycamores On Chrystie Street And Swept Them Back And Forth Until They Rang Like Ranks Of Bells.

They Gave Themselves Up To The Stars The Way Swimmers Can Surrender To The Waves, And The Stars Took Them Without Resistance.

Accident Is As Much A Part Of Fiction As Anything Else, Symbolic Of The Grace That, Along With Will, Conspires To Put Words On The Page.

We Launch Our Souls From The Cannons Of Art And Discipline, And On Any One Night, Hovering Over The Chimney Tops Of Europe, Halfway To The Stars, There Are Armies Of Brightly Spinning Spirits That Have Risen Like Fireworks, Tethered To The Souls Of Those Men And Women Who, By Reflection, Mortification, And Devotion, Effortlessly Outdazzle Kings.