If not for the dogs (and my job), I might have spent this awful March wrapped in a quilt and watch cap and staring out the window at a dank landscape the color of an ash heap, dreaming of the sun like an Aztec, but both kept me going and the dogs especially led me to see things I would have missed.
A few days ago a mile deep in woods, we both saw the shift in the trees at the same time. They will run to or bark at anything approaching on foot, but something in the air brings them to a stop as it did now. All three of us tracked it until it became a them — two big hawks descending a hill and unhurriedly dodging through limbs and around trees. They were completely silent. It was like watching a pair of Japanese spirits from an old black and white samurai film appear and disappear in a forest where travelers must pass. This happened in a moment, in seconds from first sight to disappearance. That is all it takes. We went on but the day had changed for we had been permitted to serve as witness to this wild flash of life.
