HEAVEN AND HELL Understand me: I was the boy in the hidden parts of the barn, the holes and channels made by square bales pressing against the odd angles of the roof, the one who knew the abandoned corners of the corn cribs, the dust and cobwebs and broken floorboards-- it was me in the shed whose roof had fallen in, where the giant weeds grew up into the rafters and made a greenish underwater light. I knew the sidewalk, that the slab with the iron ring in its side was the lid to a lost cistern, and I thought I was supposed to figure out Heaven and Hell etc.-- the hot sun, the cool earth, parents' anger, the reason why things happened backwards and out of order. Over and over the dew caught in the grass, and we were caught in that house with its basement corners of secrecy, its closed attics of mystery, places in the rafters or by the foundation walls where I hid alone and had shadows and daydreams for company.