FIELD NOTES: My dearest Harrybrooke, there must have been a battle;

March, 2008

...just as good and evil are found inherent in us, it is found in nature as well. I was astonished to see how many branches (not just kindling, but limbs of size) were so widely strewn. It was your Gettysburg, a family fighting itself, the force of nature wielding itself against the beauty of nature. I can imagine the booming rite of Stravinsky, the art of war and so many unknown battles. You will repair and reinvent yourself and I might see your progress week by week, season by season, if I care to pay attention. As I stepped around your lost members, the day’s brief sun was chased away by outbursts of wind and tossed pillows of gray. But the little rivulet was trickling and its sound, even more than the proverbial first sighting of a robin, signaled to me the persistence of spring.