I don’t expect great beauty on this moist grey day. The remnants of a Bering Sea storm threw a mix of rain and snow against our house all night. This morning it’s just steady rain on Chicken Ridge and out near the glacier, gentle spring snow falls.

I don’t expect beauty for  clouds obscure glacier and peaks and what snow that’s left is darkened by the detritus of winter.  A howl, pitched several octaves too high for a wolf repeats over and over as we pass into the thicker forest. When it stops I ask, “Aki, are the best poems written with a knife rather than a pen?” She pees in response. Perhaps I should invite a human along next time.

One bird’s song reaches us across a cashew shaped lake. It’s our the first true song of spring this year. Beneath the unseen soloist’s  perch we find a beauty of unexpected richness.  Ugly things have combined here to form loveliness: old ice, winter bare branches, rotting logs being devoured by moss,  all reflected in melt water.

Later we find the track of a wolf and then of a deer. The deer just passed into the woods but I can’t see her.

Near where I parked the car, we break out of the woods onto a bike path where a man with his infant son is about to ride by. The child sits on a carrier fastened cleverly to the bike’s handlebars so he can share with his father in real time.  I pick up Aki and hear the father say, look that man is warming his dog. The child looks up with wonder as if his father has conjured us up for his entertainment. They ride on, chattering with love, until lost behind a wet wall of snow flakes.