A Writer's Work Is To Witness Things.

If A Walker Is Indeed An Individualist There Is Nowhere He Can't Go At Dawn And Not Many Places He Can't Go At Noon. But Just As It Demeans Life To Live Alongside A Great River You Can No Longer Swim In Or Drink From, To Be Crowded Into Safer Areas And Hours Takes Much Of The Gloss Off Walking - One Sport You Shouldn't Have To Reserve A Time And A Court For.

Black Bears, Though, Are Not Fearsome. I Encountered One On The Road To My House In Vermont, Alone At Night. I Picked Up Two Stones Just In Case, But I Wasn't Afraid Of Him. I Felt A Hunter's Exhilaration And A Brotherly Feeling.

Once I Climbed Into A Mountain Lion's Cage And She Bounded At Me And Put Her Paw On My Face, But She Kept Her Claws Withdrawn.

Our Loneliness Makes Us Avid Column Readers These Days.

Poetry Is Engendered In Solitude, So What Better Meter For It Than The Clip Of A Buckskin Horse?