Sarah Koz

“Now Ahta-hana was weary of wandering, and it seemed to him that he had surely learned enough that he might return home. He dreamed, and afterwards he said to his wives, ‘I know that my mother is dreaming of me. I must go to her.’ All four wives wished to go with him and he consented to their going. But it was as he had feared, their strength and endurance were far less than his, and he felt so much encumbered by them that he thought of leaving them and going on alone. To make this appear more reasonable, he caused a cold rain to fall, until they could scarcely drag their feet through the mud. He went on ahead; but he looked back and saw them still struggling after him. He was ashamed of what he had willed and done, and he knew at last that he truly loved them. For the remainder of the journey he made no more cold rains; rather he learned something of their needs and natures as he had of other life in the world different from himself, and he was no longer impatient with them nor did he think again of leaving them behind.”
― Theodora Kroeber, The Inland Whale: Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends

“She was a being who needed joy. Having joy, she could triumph over the most desperate physical ills. But when joy flickered and went out, then she remembered the grave. Now, as she went softly over the bridge and began to climb the woods, joy seemed fled forever.

“She looked round her in a kind of terror, for she had come to the moment, which all sensitive people must reach at some time, when the soul perceives simultaneously the life of man—its small comforts, its upholstery of everyday—and the infinite; when it asks, bemused and anxious, ‘Which is the dream?’ They cannot both be true, it seems, for they are in flat contradiction. Yet daily life is true. There it is, with its duties and meals and wordy meetings; with its sweetness of affectionate glances and homely jests. That is no dream. Yet, when the beloved is dead, the daily life shrinks and withers; the infinite presses in. There it is, with all its indifferent stars, fearfully real, utterly unknown. With this intrusion of the infinite there come all the strange instincts of the spirit that have no part in daily life. These also are no dream. So there the soul stands, browbeaten and stunned by antithesis, murmuring, ‘Which is true? Is anything true?”
― Mary Webb, The House in Dormer Forest

“Would it be death? If so, she did not fear it, for she knew that her life would flow down the silver thread which always trailed her, to the Carrier of Spirits who would gather the rest of her in that vast sea of memory. Would she find her mother? She had found her mother. Would she go home? Where was home, anyway?

“The trees were full of fireflies, and suddenly, as if a new goddess came to meet her, the moon, a vast-seeming golden sphere of light, softened at the edges by the thickness of the air, rose and came toward her. She ran in her own globe of golden radiance until she felt that like Skaalya in the legend she could learn to fly. She would fly up, she would dive into the Moon, she would know what this goddess knew, she would give herself to the light which had at long last returned itself to her.

“She chased the moon toward her until they met at the doorway, the moon diving into the portal before Essa arrived. It was there, she knew, on the other side. Would she too pass through?

“She stood in wonder before the doorway: was this what ‘wondering’ truly meant? She could spend her life wondering.…

“Ahead of her was the bright doorway: green, iridescent, swirling, oval under the trees, lit from behind by the full moon.”
― Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine

“That peculiar light just before sunset, before gloaming: it is then that Essa sees for the first time the famous dunes at Avanue, which roll like fat people in their sleep, and shift restlessly forever.

“They cast long shadows, these sleeping giants, and Essa shivers. She has walked too far—after the trip north she was so grateful to be out of hospital—her hands and feet are cold, and she is dizzy with exhaustion. She sits down on the ragged grass at the edge of the bluff which overlooks the dunes, and tries not to hate them.

“Her mother’s words, remembered in a dream, sound like water flowing in her thoughts. There is no water here. The grasses under her are dry and stiff, and they grow in sand so fine it grits through her clothing against the skin of her ass. The sea is too far away to see or smell. But at least she is alone.

“Though she is shivering, it is still a hot day, and the sun has warmed the sand. The ground radiates heat into her body. She lies down flat on her belly, her head to one side so that she can still see the dunes, and puts her hands beneath her; gradually they warm.

“Gradually her body comes back into balance and she starts to see an eerie beauty before her. The sun is fully down when she sits up, brushes the sand away as well as she can, and hugs her knees to her chest. She puts her chin on her knees and watches darkness descend over the low rolling landscape.

“This is unlike any cliff on which she has rested yet. It is low and gives no perspective. The dunes come up almost to her feet. Yet the demarcation is quite abrupt: there is no grass growing anywhere after this brief crumbling drop-off, and she can see as the land-breeze begins to quicken that ahead of her the sand is moving. In fact, she realizes, she can hear it, a low sweeping sound which has mounted from inaudibility until it inexorably backs every other sound: sounds of grasses moving, insects scraping, birds calling from the invisible sea far beyond her viewpoint are all subsumed in one great sand-song.

“It is a sound so relentlessly sad that Essa can hardly bear to listen, but so persistent that she cannot ignore it now that she has become aware of its susurration. She pulls her sweater—the one her mother made by her knitting—around her and waits.

“When it is fully dark and the wind has died again, she rises and begins the long walk back to town in the dim light of stars and crescent moon.”
― Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine