In memory, snow fell all winter those first two years. Our backyard became a closet stuffed with bridal gowns, frothy white forms smothering every bush and tree. I loved the stacked inches atop the clean curves of honeysuckle, and the transformed hemlock, a dark Pegasus spreading white wings.

In any life, there are things that require healing. Often this healing happens in secret, the way winter turns into spring (and sometimes back again).

Sycamore thoughts are exquisite, beginning in the mud and branching into higher math. And sycamore hearts beat with reverential slowness in their capacious woody chests, one beat per human lifetime.

Fall is slightly seedy, a tad disreputable. There’s that whiff of decay, of course, and the distinct and accurate sense that things are coming apart at the seams. Fall is a thrift-store velvet jacket, wine-stained purple, with your elbows showing through.

It’s still February, a strange and diffident month. It’s a little scared of its own boldness, so ducks its head, like the snowdrops, and calls down the snow.

The world is always on the verge of being something else. Call it the temple/missile effect. I think the world’s drawn double, like an optical illusion.