That in some ways the world that greeted us when we first came here no longer is. And in other ways it hasn’t changed. That both make me feel equally sad.

That they will remain. That they need to look after the farmers and after the fields. That I attended the junior high promotion and felt these little lives moving into small and uncertain futures. That a boy who liked Mazie didn’t even finish the eighth grade.

How can spring feel so autumnal? I will miss this sky. This air. The landscape of people who have been part of our lives. But many of them have already gone on and I’ve mistakened my memory of them for their actual being.

But these ravens for now actually are. And I want to hang on to that.

They sat quietly. And they listened.