A pair of sandhill cranes flew overhead, shouting about their mornings with honks like operatic geese. If i wept then it was because i would like someone with whom to start the day. Perhaps i have roamed too far. i can still hear a long-gone friend giving me shit for not being able to settle down anywhere, the echoes of that conversation reverberating through all of the years i spent too long in one place. i wonder if roots are the way to affection. If by settling down i could find forehead kisses, someone to play with my hair. A gilded cage that i’ll inevitably break my own heart to escape. The whole wild world is out there. This nearly-summer morning in the hills is bitterly cold or breezily warm, depending on the sun as it rises. Darkness and light. Wind rolls through sagebrush the same as over a calm lake: undulating surfaces, shimmering blue-greens, whispering. i pause to watch a lone elk standing at the peak of a ridge still in shadow. i am rewarded with a head-toss accompanied by an adorably high-pitched, nasal grunt. Someone unseen responds. They squeak back and forth like this, to my delight. i wonder if they are discussing breakfast. Yesterday i made coffee where i could see a family of bison grazing. Buffalo are playful whenever they are in groups, and slow all the time unless threatened. They are vocal, democratic, affectionate. i dream of belonging to a herd.