In Contact With What Remains

This morning on the long drive to the charter school with my daughter, in her last few days of  twelve, we passed through the aftermath of a large owl hit by a school bus, still alive, held in the arms of a woman, wing askew. Half an hour later she spied three white tail deer in the trees, two on the move and one stock-still as a sentry.  On the same ride, I saw two returning orange-chested Robins, my first sighting this year,  engaged in an ariel skirmish, the cruel and dirty business of mating and staking territory. I heard the scree of a hawk twice in a week looking up and out my office window just in time to catch a glimpse of him gliding over head and I wondered if it's you, my friend, and remembered our unfinished business. The crows have kept close tabs on us all winter, awaiting our oblivious trips to the edge of the trees with food scraps they refuse to allow to become a compost pile. I see you and am better for it, though I lack the understanding to say why.