/I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace
Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
Said, “dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view!"/

“I carry the landscape inside me like an ache. The story of who I am cannot be severed from the story of the flatwoods.”

“I think of my own life, how it embraces a great quest to know every cog of nature--the names of oaks and ferns, the secret lives of birds, the taste of venison and Ogeechee lime, wax myrtle's smell and rattlesnake's, the contour of bobcat tracks, the number of barred owl cackles, the feel of Okefenokee Swamp water on my skin under a blistering sun.
I search for a vital knowledge of the land that my father could not teach me, as he was not taught, and guidance to know and honor it, as he was not guided, as if this will shield me from the errancies of the mind, or bring me back from that dark territory should I happen to wander there. I search as if there were peace to be found.”
― Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood