You know the point in a book that makes you stop and swoon and realize that you are going to love a book? Joe mentioend that point yesterday when he wrote about Dog Stars. I’m going to share my Dog Stars moment with you, but first let me give you a little set up.
The main character Hig is remembering when he went back to his house to get some of his poetry books. It wouldn’t be a big deal if a catastrophic flu and blood disease had not already devastated the planet.
Here’s the story from author Peter Heller.
“I have a book of poems by William Stafford. It’s the only thing I went back for: my poetry collections. Landing at night on no power, no lights, in the old King Sooper’s parking lot, one row a thousand easy feet between low cars, the wings went over and no light poles. Just over a mile from there to the house. Fires burning west and south, some punctuating gun shots. Waiting in the plane with the AR-15 between my legs waiting to see if anyone was left to bother the Beast for the half hour I’d be gone.”
. . .
“When I got back to the parking lot I circled in from the outside rows and there were two figures leaning into the open doors of the plane, one about to climb in. I cursed myself and checked the safety, heart hammering, and stood and yelled to get the fuck away, and when they grabbed hunting rifle and shot gun I shot them at twenty yards the first ones. For poems. I gave their guns to Bangley, refused to answer when he asked.”
“The Stafford book is called Stories That Could Be True. One poem is called ‘The Farm on the Great Plains’ and it begins:
A telephone line goes cold;
birds tread it wherever it goes.
A farm back of a great plain
tugs an end of the line.
I call that farm every year,
ringing it, listening still
He calls his father. He called his mother. They are gone for years only a hum now on the line but still he calls.”
dddddd
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