Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

 The feeling of coming into a North woods, at twilight. It recalled some vague elusive memory of my boyhood; across it a dream or a pre-natal memory even? I wish I could grasp the feeling better. A stream thru the woods, as it turned northward a group of trilliums running down a bank, the woods to the north with its lynx-like openings; twilight—the unknown; did I experience it, or is it the result of a [lifelong] desire for a dream woods? It seemed as if it could be a magic woods; as if crossing a certain invisible line, I would be in a land of enchantment where would be growing in profusion all the flowers I love, mysterious glades, and dark caves with ice still inside. Once in its level of enchantment, I would be forever a boy, enjoying only boyish delights.  When I emerged from the woods the half—moon at the zenith was already glowing brightly. The cemetery [strikethrough] I now noticed that the stones in the cemetery on the knoll were all exactly alike, and in the precise rows: [doodle of gravestone] I thought perhaps it was a soldiers graveyards and went up to look. The only inscriptions on the stones were numbers, and I was puzzled. Gradually then, it dawned on me that prisoners from the Attica State prison were buried here. The whole aspect of the place changed swiftly. It seemed horrible and sinister that men were buried here, and were only designated by impersonal