All Posts By: Byron McCoy
POSSIBILITY
“Do you believe opportunities we are meant to live are ever truly lost? Does opportunity die, or only change? If we change our eyes with new perceptions, do possibilities reappear. In different time, condition, and space, does the opportunity remain if we will ourselves to act? How many times do we talk ourselves […]
NOVEMBER DAWN
…He saw the scene and felt a happiness in his soul, the way one feels returning and knowing one is home. He felt the sense for his own fields, his own dawns and sunsets under heavens of light while laboring in a world of timeless toil, the labor on which kingdoms and civilization began […]
STOBROD
“To Ada, though it seemed akin to miracle that Stobrod, of all people, should offer himself up as proof positive that no matter what a waste one has made of one’s life, it is ever possible to find some path to redemption, however partial.”—Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain I never thought Stobrod would be […]
UNGUARDED
“Ada had to admit that, at least now and then, just saying what your heart felt, straight and simple and unguarded, could be more useful than four thousand lines of John Keats. She had never been able to do it in her whole life, but she thought she would like to learn how.”—Charles Frazier, […]
CONVERSATION WITH THE COSMOS
“I finished rereading a book yesterday.” His excitement showed in his shifting in seat, the way he drew nearer to its end, leaning outward and across to her, and in eyes that fell in focus to the table as if the thoughts he wished to share were present, physical entities to be seen and […]
LETTER TO A FRIEND
I returned to “Life is a Miracle” today, Berry’s explanation of art and how it is not valuable in what it might be reduced and explained to be, but for how it exists and what it tells by the form in which it appears, the story told, the perception shared; how art and science […]
THE HERON
“Ada wondered that herons could tolerate each other close enough to breed. She had seen a scant number in her life, and those so lonesome as to make the heart sting on their behalf. Everywhere they were seemed far from home.”—Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain He read the quote aloud, and when he finished, […]
RIVER VIEW
“The creek’s turnings marked how all that moves must shape itself to the maze of actual landscape, no matter what its preference might be.”—Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain It was a place where he went to think, where the river spread and shallowed on red sand stones of an ancient sea then fell in […]
FROM THE WOODS
“He wrote in the fall, and his words fell to page like leaves in winds of wondering. He wrote in hues of golden hopes, scarlet sorrows, and a life of shades between. When the rains of winter came, the shades between were the first to fade, become broken down and made no more; and […]