How much l wanted to take scalps, but it was not my kill. - Legends of the Fall - Jim Harrison

I must have awakened and fallen back to sleep a hundred times that night, listening to the wind rattle the palm fronds, the party noise of people jumping in the pool, the slurred shouts that the humidity and walls softened until all the words and dreams in the world became round.

Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday.
None of us is the same person as yesterday.
We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming.
This downward cellular jubilance is shared
by the wind, bugs, birds, bears and rivers,
and perhaps the black holes in galactic space
where our souls will all be gathered in an invisible
thimble of antimatter. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Yes, trees wear out as the wattles under my chin
grow, the wrinkled hands that tried to strangle
a wife beater in New York City in 1957.
We whirl with the earth, catching our breath
as someone else, our soft brains ill-trained
except to watch ourselves disappear into the distance.
Still, we love to make music of this puzzle.

At heart he was a secret Quaker and football was pure violence. The coach was always telling him to “hit them harder.” The coach wanted him to put opposing players “out of commission.” He kept it to himself but wondered what the point of the “game” was if your intention was to hurt people badly.