A Walk in the Woods

         I waited last year from late fall through early spring

         for the woods behind our house to fill with snow.

         But it was not to be. Learning to live with disappointment

          is something of an art, as long as we don’t accept it as fate.

          The seasons persist, winter returns each year, and there

          will always be the prospect of snow filling the woods.

          Today, it happened! And I reveled anew as snow fell ever

          so gently over the pines, insulating the landscape so that

          quietude enveloped the land, pierced only by the occasional

          squawking of ducks in the distance. I traipsed through snow in

          and around fallen trees and wetlands that hadn’t frozen over

          with my wife and our four-legged companion, who ran with

          abandon. I could sense her joy. Today, in those moments,

          I came home to a place in my mind periodically traversed, but

          not as frequently as I would prefer. And yet, in these snow-filled woods,

          it occurred to me that my home is in nature and that she will

          always welcome me back like a prodigal son who has wandered

          afar, only to return to the place where I began.