Spring

Today was one of those occasional March miracles. Sunny and almost 70 degrees. Perfect. I had breakfast with my youngest at a sugar shack on the Eastern bank of the Connecticut River. Real maple syrup on a waffle, maple butter, good chewy bacon and strong coffee. We walked along the river after. Its surface was glass with not so much as a ripple for as far as I could see. Nesting birds moved about in the trees. Robins, cardinals. A sparrow singing for a love interest. 

He saw his dog off to the hereafter last week. The crazy little terrier who always picked up a shoe and took off running when I came into the house. He used to chew my hand to ribbons when he was just a little guy. The poor guy had lost his sight over the last few months and was wasting with cancer. They'd been keeping him hydrated intravenously for the past week. He stopped eating and drinking and finally didn't want to take the IV anymore. They knew he'd had enough. 

He's waiting for the dog's ashes to come home now. They decided to have him cremated, rather than buried near the house, so he could come along with them if they were ever to move. 

I walked in the woods again, on my own, in the later afternoon. A porcupine slept beside a babbling brook soothed by the sound of its gently spoken language.