Within its gates I heard the soundOf winds in cypress caverns caughtOf huddling tress that moaned, and soughtTo whisper what their roots had found.(__ Dream of Fear_)

We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to.Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor.Because they never understand us, but they never give up.Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves.Because they come from little boys.Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women.Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we__e happy.Because they elevate sports to religion.Because they__e never afraid of the dark.Because they don__ care how they look or if they age.Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything.Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels.Because they__e always ready for sex.Because they__e like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations.Because they__e afraid to go bald.Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say.Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry.Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human.Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end.Because they always finish the food on their plate.Because they are brave in front of insects and mice.Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots.Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between.Because for them there__ no such thing as too much adrenaline.Because when all is said and done, they can__ live without us, no matter how hard they try.Because they__e truly as simple as they claim to be.Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we__e there to catch them.Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it.Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action.Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys.Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads.Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say.Because they don__ lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size.Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don__ want them to.Because when we say __ love you_ they ask for an explanation.

...nobody ever takes from the desert anything but aridity and monsters...

They were the men and the women of the sand, of the wind, of the light, of the night. They appeared as in a dream, at the crest of a dune, as if they were born of the cloudless sky.

Beyond the wall of the unreal city _ there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then __ay your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night.

LEONATOWell, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.BEATRICENot till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.