Mary is home
from Columbus, Ohio - our niece's surgery. The weekend prior she was in Iowa with me, to see my father after his surgery. A weekend in Milwaukee before that, two days with a friend who'd had surgery for lung cancer. And the weekend before, we were in Edmonton and Missoula. I said to Mary: "Are you going to stay put for a while? Are you going to put your feet up?" I think I'd plant myself.
Blue sky this morning. Sun melting frost on the tin roof of the brick building across West Street from us. The roof is bright with it.
There is something to settling down into a place. You become the place as much as the place becomes a part of you.
A vee of geese overhead, noisy, reflected in the windshield of the car as I scrape off the frost. The vee points to the northwest.
The snow in Fairwater is in retreat, yet still it puts up a good fight. Great plow banks and piles remain some places. In other places lawns are nearly clear. The flag at the cemetery hangs limp as a loser's arms.
North of Fairwater a vee of geese flies to the northeast. Before day's end, all the corners of the world will be covered with geese, yes?
The flowerbed to the southeast of Five Corners is entirely bare; the flowerbed on the opposite corner is still buried under four feet of snow.
I see two crows and they promise me nothing.
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