Reasons for the Wilderness.

Carve your own pencils, whittle your own pipe.
Why do men live alone in the woods?

Build your own cabin and chimney; all out of trees that you have hewn and stone that you have carried.
What is it about the wilderness that fascinates them so?

Skin the flesh that you have claimed; killed so that you may live.
Is it atonement or haunting or fear or worse?

Your beard will grow while you sleep alone; there is nothing but survival in the mountains.
Survival or worse.

Not for the autumn leaves or the rushing streams; not for honor or for dreams.
Nor for war or peace; neither God or gods or godly things.

Men live alone for horror.
Horror at what it is their world has become, and at what it is that they have done.