The old dreams of hunting, the moon. Deep in the blood, memories of poets and kings asking for and receiving stories of the first and the last. The sanctuaries of Artemis are spread throughout the groves of the Mediterranean and she shape-changes by location. She, Artemis Diana, had come here, to my backyard.

On a Friday evening two years ago, the night of Zozobra burning when I refused to attend but could hear the groaning from Fort Marcy Park and the annoyance of the helicopters keeping order on the crowd, I was standing in the yard having a cigar and a beer and called my son Zach to remind him of the annual auto-da-fe,