On hope

Today, at dawn I read a poem. Outside the world slowly lightened bleak white, snap frozen, still. The day warmed and I worked my way through it. Then, at dusk I saw a crow fly with a stick in its beak. Its wing crisp on beaten air. The crow, I knew, was flying to its nest. What I didn’t know was how it knew. The season has turned.

The poem, which I copi…