Red Clay Weather

On Heroes and Hero Worship

—49 On Heroes and Hero Worship And then a hero stumbles by, dragging the exile stone behind him, dredging a path through history’s red clay, his forced march into virtues no one can use: mumbling something about certainty and the course to be stayed, the race to stay in place or keep another there, where the burnt offerings are buried, and the quicklime laid to keep them dead. The rhyme of blood and iron rings half-true, guns and butter grease the slope and down he goes, a ceremony of extinctions assembled on the cheap, avalanche of sedimentary rocks all shaped like shoeless soldiers. He dusts his conscience off, and walks into another room where he’s the hero. shepherd text-2.indd 49 11/22/10 2:07 PM ...