Winter Count (11 page)

Lopez and Debra at a rooftop restaurant in Istanbul, Turkey, with Hagia Sofia in the background, in May 2012.

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“Buffalo” originally appeared in
Chouteau Review
as “Intentions in North America: The Buffalo.” “The Lover of Words” originally appeared in
North American Review
. Epigraphs: “Song of Recognition,” from
Striking the Dark Air for Music
, copyright © 1973 William Pitt Root, used with permission; from the preface to the 1967 edition of
The Book of Imaginary Beings
, Jorge Luis Borges with Margarita Guerrero.

The lines recalled by the narrator in “Winter Count 1973: Geese, They Flew Over in a Storm,” from a poem called “Arctic,” copyright © 1977 William Pitt Root, are scanned and are used with the permission of
The Nation
.

to hunch and spread

his wings and tail and fall

silent as moonlight

upon the quick hot

frenzy in that fur.

Copyright © 1976, 1980, 1981 by Barry Holstun Lopez

Illustrations copyright © 1981 by Ted Lewin

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4804-0937-8

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com