A Brief Morning Reflection

As if conjured – maybe even a summoning. The sky shaking out the snow, loosening a pair of foxes, tracks criss-crossing the field, cat-sized but fox-made. The magic is everywhere this morning – on the slate of the road and the white of the leaves, everything turned the colours of the pigeons now coming down from the treetops for their morning prayer of sunflower seeds. How could I not want to do everything to protect a place like this, to worship it? Generous winter, patient even now with all the trials and tribulations we cause her, even now, offering me one more reminder, one more chance, to be good.