I startled the little fox again. In one great spring it hopped a fence. It looked back thrice, all pausing, steady. Over the snow shine toward shadows, deliberate, ready. What must it be like to take beauty for granted. Daffodil greens peek from where they weren’t planted. They say life is what happens when you’re making plans. Let’s follow beauty and see how we land.

Spring is long in arriving, there’s still ice on the driveway. More snow piles have piled since equinox. I still bundle to go out and as I light up there are always the signs of a fox. Sometimes they scoot past me, sometimes they skirt ‘round, but always I find their tracks. Today we gave the houseplant some new dirt, and I got reminded about trynna go back. You can’t go anywhere again. No scenery is static. One day in spring the arroyo’s dry, the next, flood’s causing panic.

it wasn’t what you hoped for but it’ll have to do. that thing you have you did want well you’re wondering about it, too. there’s chickens in the driveways and crosses by the road. you know just where you’re at by the bouncing of your load. we dream of spring in winter, we dream of snow in fall. slow down there, let that simmer. it don’t need your help at all.

I didn’t grow up smelling juniper, but I know its flavor now. They’ve really got more money than common sense allows. The surprise of hospitality is disappointment’s leach. These city streets are too clean, where does everybody sleep. In comfort and in silence your mind stays growing strong. Perhaps the only enemy has been time all along.

the crows are screaming murder. the sky stayed heavy for days. there’s nothing there you’re needing but you do miss the old ways. did you state your business clearly. did you mean to try your luck. you think you’re nice but rolling the dice? it’s like you’d just as soon give up.

You didn’t do it purposely but the silence only grows. You lathered all your fur but forgot to scrub your toes. It ain’t just any rhythm will make you move like this one. It wasn’t for forgiveness’s sake we chose to buy a gun. Only Baldwin holds her nights now and she basks in things this way. She’s gonna take a long train trip, forget everything they say. Who told you it was selfish when you stood up for your bliss. There’s no legacy to leave about a life you wouldn’t miss.

The juncos in their battles they go pew pewpew pewpew. The purple finches always win cuz they fly in with a crew. Chickadees will come and go, they flit too fast to fight. Even the woodpeckers don’t stay long when they alight. If this wasn’t an adventure you wouldn’t be afraid. If you want to never be scared you can stay where it’s safe. There’s plenty she can’t tolerate but there’s much more that she can. Spin the globe and close your eyes, see where your finger lands.

As the crow flies, it’s eight miles away and a mile up. Lit by the full moon, snowy peaks.. peek. Through a dark-clouded sky our blaring orb bounces off the mountaintops, who in turn glint through shades of shadow. The snowless faces below these frosted ridge lines remain hidden, drenched in nighttime. The alpine winks. Among the densities of cloud the range seems shy: showing there dimly, elsewhere not at all. Snow sparkled angles peek from their negligee of satin greys. The full moon persists above. Softly the sky whispers, of small and ancient glories.

He told us he’d gotten a tooth pulled. She winced, “Oh, that hurts in your brain bones!” Always is a falsehood, never’s more a habit. If you don’t have the precise word, you’ll find your way around it. They wondered how to forgive what they didn’t understand. You’re never in the right place to be makin demands.

It is the Monday you’ve looked forward to. Young faces notice yours, register recognition of a promise kept, and light up in giant smiles. An adult-sized boy whoops out your name as he runs full speed across campus to squash you in the kind of whole-hearted hug you see in movies. He leaves you staggering, joy-struck. Paying attention, you notice more than a few kids seem to grow just a bit stronger in your shared tiny, vital moment of bolstered faith. Even the students that were not yours are glad to see you, to be able to trust. One tiny cutie sprints over snow in combat boots, quickly if not gracefully rushing into your arms, then immediately pulls away to hold both of your hands and stare up at your face. Your face that hides nothing, even as your heart threatens to overflow from your eyes. You are, with such precision that it feels impossible, exactly where you need to be.

I’m reading that McCarthy book my brother gave me dog-eared. We thought he might not finish it before my most recent departure, but he pulled it off. He was hesitant to say he’d loved it, but wasn’t unimpressed. It’s McCarthy after all, we agree. Weeks later now I notice a blank page missing from the back that wasn’t blank by the time my brother ripped it. A small ink mark, perhaps a scribbled “s”, left behind in the rending. I once tore a book from its binding, as my mother sighed, to take the half I liked along with me. Now I carry this heavy, 380 page hard-cover as affectionately as I once did the toy elephant my brother carried as a baby and gave me at graduation. The one I lost in a fire a decade later, the way I had long since lost him to a fathomless love, consumed by flame when we were still kids. As with so many small moments, I cling to this now: a book that reveals a shared trait between we two. I love that we both eschew biblio-sanctity in favor of the words themselves. I gather this new fact carefully about me, protective. Shoring up sibling-hood, feeding a humble hearth fire still smoldering.

Bigger birds, magpie and crow, use their beaks to search in the snow. Little birds will use their feet, a split second pachanga on repeat.

Isabel Allende’s daughter died in her twenties. Allende wrote, “She wants me to find joy. And in that joy, find her.” I am grieving. My most important human losses happened before I realized they were so. Decades later it is finally sinking in, and I miss my family more than ever. Something in me refuses to forgive, bawling with resent and regret, but now. Cuando bailo, mi familia están aquí conmigo. I feel my uncle tell me that my joy is his. Mi abuelita dice que I have fulfilled their dreams of me, y mucho más. Te prometo, nena. I endeavor to keep them close the way I imagine devotees will do with their gods. I yearn to feel their disembodied love with the desperation of future saints. My piety is in following their erstwhile, earthbound lead: fearless joy and dancing, especially when there’s grief.

City of the Rails is a new podcast produced by a journalist and mother whose kid runs off to be a train bum. In her daughter’s sudden, surprise absence, this parent proceeds to launch a massive project of investigation. If you have ever known train-hoppers, dirty kids, or gutter punks, this is their story—finally! I am stoked to listen to a very basic lady start to understand anarchism. For me, one truly difficult thing about being free is that if you want to visit a place called home, you’ll still have to leave again. Listening to Danelle Morton’s revelatory distress, heartbreak, and whole-hearted love was probably the closest I’ll get to understanding my own mama. I cry at least once during most of the episodes, and I relish hearing the details of a wild life that I will never lead. I feel very grateful for this woman’s perseverance in telling a true story of why a beloved child might run away to be free.

The snow slides to whoomp, thud down from the eaves. Winter bestowed a view of mountains between these now bare trees. If I feed forty juncos does it matter I killed one? If my anger’s righteous, might they forgive the gun? They scuff at snow and twitter, coo and caw and tweet. They quibble over seeds, then sing shout from the trees. Friendship doesn’t cover it but we know where we stand. I adore all of the birds, and I’m your biggest fan.