"You don't know, my Charley, that right down there, in the little valley, I fished for trout with your namesake, my Uncle Charley. And over there - see where I'm pointing - my mother shot a wildcat. Straight down there, forty miles away, our family rank was - old starvation ranch. Can you see that darker place down there. Well that's a tiny canyon with a clear lovely stream bordered with wild azaleas and fringed with big oaks. And on one of those oaks my father burned his name with a hot iron together with the name of the girl he loved. In the long years the bark grew over the burn and covered it..... In spring , Charley, when the valley is carpeted with blue lupines like a flowery sea, there's the smell of heaven up here, the smell of heaven."
I printed it once more on my eyes, south, west, and north, and then we hurried away from the permanent and changeless past where my mother is always shooting a wildcat and my father is always burning his name with his love.
I printed it once more on my eyes, south, west, and north, and then we hurried away from the permanent and changeless past where my mother is always shooting a wildcat and my father is always burning his name with his love.
