For me, the presences that the early Celts tried to keep inside the trunks of trees by knocking on wood always came out in the evenings, particularly in spring and summer, when the crepe myrtle and the pale green of a weeping willow seemed at odds with each other. In the croaking of the frogs, the dying of the light, the tide rising along the banks of the Teche, I felt a sensation like spiritual malaria imprisoning my soul. In an instant the sky would turn to carbon. I think that’s why I sometimes went out to Spanish Lake at sunset.
