A yearling bear, black as country midnight, appears through the hostas and checks out my back porch. The bear and I appraise each other through the glass door. Then the bear slips over the porch into the raspberry canes and heads off. My little street, with not even a handful of houses, quickens in the texting world. I am not the only one awake this early.

Later, midday, on the Dartmouth College campus for a lit mag launch, I’m standing on a street corner, talking with a woman I’ve just met, and a deer walks by. It’s Hanover, a New Hampshire town, and students raise their phones to record. The deer runs across the road, its heels click-clicking on the pavement.

Early June, a heady time in northern New England, the lilacs as dense and profuse as I’ve ever seen these beauties. My neighbor and I walk along these fragrant blossoms, then head into town for the community meal where, in the noisy space, the group of old and new friends that I join put our heads near, the conversation rising and twirling with that spring ebullience.

As the evening cools but doesn’t cloud, my neighbor and I walk home and linger on her veranda. Hummingbirds sip at her feeders. I’ve been moving the remainder of this year’s firewood, readying to stack next year’s wood, and the weight of this work lies in my shoulders, exhausting and yet welcome. This moving of firewood may take me weeks. We talk about phlox and columbine, about sex and money and house painting. These days are long. I slip off my sandals and wander home in my bare feet.