On Route 153 of Late

To the north, Lali has let go of her goats and I didn’t get to say goodbye, and to the south, on weekends anyway, there’s a café at the goat farm where Angela and Darcie serve toasted cheese sandwiches and succotash soup and cheese plates and granola next to a freezer of frozen meaty parts of goats I didn’t get to say goodbye to either. Matt sings and plays the guitar at the café and every time I decide it’s time to leave and get back to my chores another friend walks in, and there you are. Next door, Kristina turned ten and had her first sleepover party, and Lynda made whoopie pies, three of which Alison and I insisted that Tim sneak over and steal (and lo, they were very good). Past the goat farm, on another even-further-south farm, the clink of cocktail glasses filled with Cold River martinis heralded the start of the Superbowl and a feast of good food and wine (and I got to meet the puppy!). Right here, in my office, I’ve looked out my world wide window to see snow slam the mid-Atlantic states, then out my local window—first at the bare Vermont ground, then up at the afternoon light—and sometimes it doesn’t look like winter light anymore, sometimes there’s almost a glimmery pulse of spring, a tiny seed of a pulse, perhaps, that’s wanting to be.