“After an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of the mountain as money and cut the trees that were here and the wind and the rain at night. It is hard to say it.”

“We couldn't understand because we were too far... and could not remember because we were traveling in the night of first ages, those ages that had gone, leaving hardly a sign... and no memories.”

“The wind cut like a knife up here, and shrilled in the night like a mother mourning her slain children.”

“Oh, son, hardly anybody wants to leave. These mountains are more than just a place for folks around here.”

“Elisa thought how empty the prayers sounded. The words rattled around in the ancient rafters and then returned to them like dead leaves falling from the trees. No life. No shade of hope. Only a cold wind that blew into their very souls.”

“a wind has blown the rain away & the sky away & all the leaves away, & the trees stand. i think i, too, have known autumn too long.”