On Cowee Ridge

December 13, 1993 John Gordon Boyd died on the birthday of three remarkable, and remarkably different, writers: Heinrich Heine, Kenneth Patchen, Ross McDonald John, too, was just as remarkable, blessed with an inherent “graciousness” and with extraordinary eyes & ears… I think of two texts on the grievous occasion of his death: “Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what I can touch, and look at. My Gods dwell in temples made with hands.” — Oscar Wilde, in De Profundis and two lines in Rainier Maria Rilke, John’s favorite poet, that say it all… Was tun Sie, Gott, Wenn ich bin st ü rbe? “What will you do, God, when I am dead?”