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The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West

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Author

Rick Bass
Rick Bass

Rick Bass, born on March 7, 1958, is an American writer known for his nature literature and ecological literature. His works often explore the relationship between humans and nature, blending literary and philosophical elements. Bass's writing style is distinctive and has won him a wide audience. more

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“I pointed to a red-tailed hawk half a mile above us. I watched the hawk to see if it was Chubb. Strange things happen in the animal world when a loved one dies, that's a fact. They honor our passage with far more reverence than we do theirs.”

DeathNatureFamilyAnimals
Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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“Did he know he was going to die?" I asked, and Grandfather looked at me in surprise-his little granddaughter again. "He was eight-seven," he said in his stroke language. Grandfather studied my face carefully then, missing nothing. He watched my face the way he would have watched the cedars for a songbird he was trying to lure in with his screech owl calls. I was the young woman who would be burying him. He was trying to have it both-the afterlife and the here. His face was as curious as a young boy's.”

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Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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“I remember a game Omar and I used to play, when we were small. Scorpions would glow in the dark, after we'd loaded them up with light by shining our flashlight on them. Not every scorpion would glow like this, but some would-about one in a hundred, maybe one in a thousand. We'd lift up rocks, under the moonlight, and shine our lights on the scorpions' backs, looking for such a specimen. And then when we'd find one, we'd fill him with the light from our flashlights, then shut the lights off and follow him, glowing in the dark, across the caliche streambeds, across the slick rock, and across the hills, following him until the glimmer faded, and there was only silence.”

NightNatureFamilyGenerationsNostalgiaDeath And DyingPassing Time
Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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