THE BEETLE

Is there a modern reader that can measure up to this page? Is there one quiet enough? Is there one who has prepared herself? Is there a wall in Los Angeles on which such a beetle could appear?

I have been sitting still for two hours in a cabin on a mountain. The crickets give a pulse to the night. A fly bangs around inside my lampshade. His book lies open before me but I do not know how to approach the purity of this passage.

In all the scriptures of the West, has G-d ever spoken so gently?