Vermont Public Radio and my teenager and so many questions, questions: what does this mean? Why did this happen? So many questions and I have no answers, merely: think of this bit of information, and that geography matters, history matters, that anger and desire and fury and bitterness matter.

I slid potatoes and squash in the oven and stepped outside for firewood. With the sun going down, the air had abruptly cooled. My younger daughter and the neighbor child were in the darkening woods, laughing. Overhead, the clouds parted over the crescent moon, and then concealed this heavenly beauty. Unseen, geese honked their mournful journey, away.

Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossom.

— Basho