up to heaven and never catch fire.  There are green centipedes and brown centipedes and black centipedes, because green and brown and black are the colors in hell’s flag.  Centipedes have hundreds of feet because it is so far from hell to come up for air.  Centipedes do not hurry.  They are waiting for the last day when they will creep over the false prophets who will have their hands tied.

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Night calls to the sandhills and gathers them under her. she pushes away cities because their sharp lights hurt her soft breast.  Even candles make a sore place when they stick in the night.

There are things in the sandhills that no one knows about... they come out at dark when the young snakes play and tell each other secrets in the deaf logs.

Sometimes... before rain... when the stars have gone inside... the night comes close to your window and sniffs at the light....  But you must not run away—­ you must keep your face to the night and walk backward.

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When it rains and you are pulling off flies’ legs... mama lets you play houses with Lizzie and Clara.  Because you are the Only One—­ and because Only Ones have to live alone while sisters stay together, Lizzie and Clara give you the dry house and take the one with the leaking roof.

Rain like curly hairpins blows on Lizzie and Clara’s two heads turned like one head—­ two mouths spread into one laugh.  Lizzie is saying:  why don’t you want to play—­ when you feel you’d like to braid the crinkled-silver rain into a shining rope to climb up... and up... and up... into the wet sky and never see any one again.

Our gate doesn’t hang right.  It must have pawed at the wind and gotten a kick as the wind passed over.  The sitting sky puffs out a gray smoke and the wind makes a red-striped sound blowing out straight, but our gate drags its foot and whines to itself on one hinge.

     :  : 

What do you think I’ve found—­ two wee knickers of fairy brass, or two gold sovereigns folded up in a bit of green silk, or two gold bugs in little green shirts?  If you want to know, you must walk tip-toe so your feet just whisper in the grass—­ you must carry them careful and very proud, for their stems bleed drops of milk—­ but Lizzie and Clara shout in glee:  Pee-a-bed, pee-a-bed—­ dandelions!  You look in the eyes of grown-up people to see if they feel the way you feel... but they hide inside of themselves, and so you do not find out.  Grown-up people say:  The stars are bright to-night, but they do not say what you are thinking about stars—­ not even mama says what you are thinking about stars.  This makes you feel very lonely.

     :  : 

It’s strange about stars....  You have to be still when they look at you.  They push your song inside of you with their song.  Their long silvery rays sink into you and do not hurt.  It is good to feel them resting on you like great white birds... and their shining whiteness doesn’t burn like the sun—­ it washes all over you and makes you feel cleaner’n water.