In Iceland, in early January, when dusk begins at dawn, alone in a wind-whipped shack, I kneel as though cowering before my little stove door. Nights are immense, and my coal is black as night. A geologist in his lab might be able to say, within a million years or so, just when and where the coal’s towering source-plants were laid down; I only know, while waiting for the room to warm, it was very long ago, and far away. … More »