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.

I’m painfully familiar; it’s why I had to go. We both believed in dreaming, but truth is the whole show. Aren’t you exhausted by entitlement, tired of the taking? How burdensome that crown must feel when you have everything. Aren’t you sick of the old stories? Unused muscles are so weak. How tedious the torment, absent adversity. No one really wants to leave you suffering all on your own. It’s just the nature of your burden when you make that place your home.

I like wide-open spaces but for sure the desert wears me. The Rio Grande is truly everything it’s cracked up to be. To watch the stars in the desert you can look straight ahead. When finally I sought shade, I found dust storms instead. I been shivering and smoking and driving and crying. Laughing aloud at a mouse and then whining. Back in Colorado I’m shoveling Portland cement. If I can’t sit around outside Imma post up where I rent. Did he know you’d dance when he played that song? Did I tell you I got to see a roadrunner run? Gladly unpacking now I’m feeling satisfied. I still perseverate some but I’m straightened out inside.

The night didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. Morning arrived in shades of grey and then the wind picked up. The mouse is suffering in the trap. There’s no campsite that works. Your server didn’t greet you, just demanded your order. Then the radio started playing a familiar, beloved song. There’s nothing for the madness, because kid, the road is long.

I told you all along but I told you so don’t fit. The desert isn’t welcoming if you just want to sit. Badgers bustle much like skunks but got a lot more heft. I’m gonna have this to myself I’ll share with you what’s left. This arid expanse once spent millennia under the sea. Whats been working well for you just doesn’t jive with me.

After a standard exchange of greetings with an old man hiking past the spot I’d chosen to sit along the Chisos Basin trail, I thought to ask how his day was going. “Oh, I’m okay,” he said with a twinkle. “I could be at home in bed right now.”

I saw it, yelled, and honked, but the junco wouldn’t leave the middle of that snowy road. My single lane was barely cleared. Even though I wanted to swerve, it was that little idiot or me. Maybe it was injured? I attempted to go over it—not run it over—but predictably this small birdbrain roused at the last second, only to be met directly by the car grill. I heard it. All at 70MPH. And it wasn’t the first thing I’d contributed to the death of that day.

I continued on, praying then, and more often after that.

A few days later I was walking around my car when I saw the junco’s little body tucked in not quite horrifically; at least it had died immediately. I yelled again then, the other death too still fresh. Grief rose out of my gut into frustrated, helpless sounds. There was nothing to do but apologize as I gently released the bird from its prolonged state of sudden end, feeling the tiny bones immediately lose all tension in my hands. So soft, so fragile; the junco collapsed into me like I could care for it. I felt the depth of my incompetence at caring for all things weaker.

Gently, thoughtfully, and in a plastic bag, I brought the feathered, bloody corpse with me to bury in my friend’s back yard. I whispered to it as if a sleeping baby, “Little bird, I’m sorry” among other things. At my friend’s house in a snowy canyon holding my small spade, I wondered if the dirt was frozen. Could I appreciate further penance? I turned toward the trees. The ground under the pines opened easily in dark intimacy, layers upon layers of soft loam inviting. Death is everywhere beneath the topsoil, the branches above me seemed to say, waving in the winter wind, Welcome. Still whispering to my victim, I allowed myself to envision the bird resting in peace. Lying there in its final place, my junco let me grieve.

He said “Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating”; the world never forgot. Now she learns from her own silence. You might give it a shot. Youth stinks of self-absorption. Age runs arrogant. They’ll take more than their portion, then wonder why its spent. I got nothing but defensive plays, what’s left is all a game. They hadn’t known each other long when he used her old nickname. Snow dusts throughout the desert, c’est une pâtisserie. I know how to use the hurt, don’t worry about me.

The flicker fluffed herself up to stay all day. Snacking then resting, never flying away. I wonder about how you lie to yourself. Habits on habits all giving us hell. He’s never there though we know he tries. Sand in the concrete, shit gathering flies. I alone can be blamed for my sentiments. She said she heard but that’s not what I meant. Doves come and go with soft sweet coos. Every path is yours, just choose.

I don’t know how long I watched the icicles grow. A millimeter at least. Half a year passed with nail polished toes, how long can they be flecked green. You got duped by a pretense it wasn’t on you. Sun shining on snow can be blinding. The jays scream and hop along the bare branches. She said she likes when she finds things. They waited a while to come together, maybe it’s just for the kids. I wanted to be what they wanted from me, but I’m not and that’s all there is.

Orange rind balanced on the edge of a coupe. I admire them both, as one and as two. Listening to the sizzle of snow falling on fire. Just cuz you’re changing don’t make you a liar. History adds up and ours is sweet fodder. But for this or that we might not have bothered. What good is potential if there ain’t an intent. Love’s never enough, let’s cash in on time spent.

We started the year with a two year old’s toast. I been asking for less but they just do the most. She’s got a penchant for romance instead of the truth. One can’t help but forgive the mistakes caused by youth. Does he take all those ghosts where ever he goes? If we’re storytelling, you’re writing the prose. The kid sings himself softly awake in his crib. We need similar wonder in order to live.

They all planned to rise early for the first chair lift. We both stayed at the bar til the end of her shift. Nothing like chain smoking to make your throat numb. Distractions don’t serve if you can see down the gun. We believe in free will, except when we don’t. It’s not that I can’t, I’m saying I won’t.

Thin ink, huge script: “I’ve got 99 problems and white heteronormative patriarchy is ALL OF THEM”

Underneath, also in pen, in almost normal-sized handwriting: “damn girl u right”

Bold ink and bigger composition, still smaller than the first: “I feel your pain. SUBVERT + RISE ABOVE.”

Mom woke from her hotel bed at 4AM to say goodbye. 7:30 now and a group of white boys at BWI are drinking oversized beers while the important types bluster into their phones.

I watch a man yell across the food court in greeting, “Hey, I was about to call you! I left you a message yesterday.” He’s delighted. I follow his gaze to the other party and find her beaming at him across the busy tables. I wonder at the circumstances of being in an airport and bumping into someone for whom you’d just left a message.

There are adult bros holding court on their way to snowy mountains. I move away from them because I’d prefer to overhear other voices. I am rewarded immediately by jolly airport staff joking and laughing with each other. If there’s anything I miss about city living it’s the boisterous, startling laughs.

I have to lean over to futz in my bag on the floor in front of me. As I sit up from this I find myself looking directly into a just-risen sun as it blasts between rafters in the airport ceiling. Immediately dazzled, I glance away quickly only to discover that nowhere else was touched by those sharp rays of dawn. Not my body, not any of the bodies around me, not even the floor. Only my own insignificant noggin had been startled and graced by the newborn day. And only in that brief moment, for even as I registered the blinding beauty of it all, the sun moved on.

Later as I people watch, the sneaky rays shine again into a small slice of the teeming departures scene. They grace the head of a very important person who has stopped to check his phone in the middle of the terminal bustle. He is haloed and golden for his own moment, radiant even as he forces traffic to stream around him. Hallowed inconvenience.

Listening to her snoring is like watching the stars. You know what to expect in hotel bars. He finished the book so I could carry it on. I probably won’t write you, but I will dance to our song. Across from her bed I don’t want to sleep. I break our hearts again, and again, when I leave.

she took it very seriously when they said “be the change”. he started to speak feelings and the language wasn’t strange. they sleep all day and dream all night then twinkle in the dawn. she chose to be the summer wind, he spoke familiar tongues. they leave the nest to seek their prey of whom none stand a chance. she breezes through the blooming fields, he brings his song and dance.

“I am looking forward to seeing your final form,” I say. The truth however, is that if all goes well, there won’t be one. The diligence of evolving oneself is unending. Limitless.