An Oregon Message

When we first moved here, pulled the trees in around us, curled our backs to the wind, no one had ever hit the moon—no one. Now our trees are safer than the stars, and only other people's neglect is our precious and abiding shell, pierced by meteors, radar, and the telephone. From our snug place we shout religiously for attention, in order to hide: only silence or evasion will bring dangerous notice, the hovering hawk of the state, or the sudden quiet stare and fatal estimate of an alerted neighbor. This message we smuggle out in its plain cover, to be opened quietly: Friends everywhere— we are alive! Those moon rockets have missed millions of secret places! Best wishes. Burn this.