Every doorway, every intersection has a story.

Suddenly the staggering love bursts away from me like milk from a smashed glass.

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.

Just as a snowflakewent on to feed a puddle that filled a stream and then the river, thepumpkin patch is a gathering of molecules from my old goats, chickens,and cats, feeding the underworld of dirt creatures. And somewhere, myfather's ashes mingle with birds, air, and sea.

The more potent, unasked question is how society at large reacts to eager, voluntary violence by females, and to the growing evidence that women can be just as aggressive as men.

It is coincidence, I decide, and I am getting old and batty, thinking the universe revolves around me.

I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy. Each of these innocents on the street is engulfed by a terror of their own ordinariness. They would do anything to be unique.