The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when
you have gone to the earth I will let my hair
grow long for your sake, I will wander through
the wilderness in the skin of a lion.

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

Never again will a single story be told as though it were only one.

JOHN BERGER

This book is in memory of Michel Lambeth, Sharon Stevenson, and Bill and Michael Acres And for Linda, and Sarah Sheard and David Young

IF HE IS AWAKE early enough the boy sees the men walk
past the farmhouse down First Lake Road.

-Lights, he said.