If All Else Fails by Craig Strete Page B

with strong hearts. The blood runs close to the surface, so cut
there.
    Not temporary cuts,
cut deep. Not superficial cuts, cut deep. Take the tops off the mountains, let the forest grow
back there. Cut deep and wide and lovingly. Shoot the rifles tenderly. Life is more than the
space between your legs. Life is more than a place to die on the photograph of your soul. Carry
scissors—shear, snip away into darkling night.
    Wound but wisely.
Look to each other for strength, back away from unlived life but not from unleashed power. Take
the sky away. Take the sky away in your power. Put people In it, send your thoughts up like tree
branches. Soft thoughts, keep them for private torment. Think strong.
    Wield all things in
battle but your bodies. All things in battle but bodies. Man and woman. Not man with woman. Woman
and man and child.
    The May queen,
seeking an equal, picks one; he wears no wool, is not blind. Live like trees who lose their leaves. Man and woman. Woman and man.
Child. No other way leads with strength.
    A tree without
leaves is a trunk, sexless in winter. A taste of wasted bone on the lips.
    A man without
woman.
    A woman without
man.
    Like this, a taste
of wasted bone on the lips.
    Like this, a place
to die on the photograph of your soul.
    A child is from the
strengths of two wisdoms, conceived. Misunderstood in the light of the present day, voiceless in
the modern ear, it is yet to be. It will change. Nurse the thought in your strength. It will
change.
    Have you seen the
Earth? Not he or she but we?
    Tomorrow may come
any day. Watch for it.
     

With The Pain It Loves And Hates
    He had the frost of
winter in his hair and the slowness of cooling ashes in his blood. The men in the village did not
know where he came from. One day he was there, standing under the drying racks, his eyes like two
soaring hawks as he watched the children at play.
    Old Bear Teeth went
to him but the old one did not speak. He turned and walked back up the mountain. He gave no
answers to the questions shouted at his back.
    He came back again
and again. He spoke to no man. He watched the children. The old chiefs spoke of him and they were
frightened of this old one who would not speak and whose purpose was unknown. They wrapped their
robes about them and muttered. And there were some who would kill the old one. On the day that
they decided this thing, the old one came dressed in a faded robe of our clan.
    Old Bear Teeth went
to the strange one again. "Who are you, old one?"
    The aged one from
the mountains looked into the eyes of Old Bear Teeth. His voice was thick and uneasy upon his
tongue as if it had slept a long time. "My name? It has been so long since I have used it. So
long since I have spoken to other beings of blood and skin. I was once called Long
Bear."
    "Hai!" Old Bear
Teeth stepped back. "Long Bear was from this village! There was a child of that name. But
Long Bear was taken as a child from this
place by a demon! Are you a demon, old one?"
    "I was touched by
demons. The demons that touch all men in their deeds and their sleep. I am no demon. Do not be
afraid of me."
    "Who are you who
says he is Long Bear? I knew Long Bear as a boy. We played together. The demons took him. This I
remember."
    "I am he. Dimly I
remember. You were called Running Elk. That was yours before your man name."
    Old Bear Teeth
looked deep into the face of the old one. His dim eyes probed the lines and seams of his face.
"Yes it is so. You are Long Bear. But were you not taken by demons?"
    Old Bear Teeth
backed farther away. The fear was tight in the muscles of his face and the hollow of his
stomach.
    "You need not fear
me. I can hurt no one," said the old one.
    "Are you a demon?
Do you breathe? Do you sleep? I am afraid of you, old one, with the name and aged face of one who
went away with the dark ones of the mountains," said Old Bear Teeth.
    "Why are you here,
aged one? What do you seek?"
    The old