Vernal Equinox Near the 45th Parallel

The weather has turned warm suddenly, melting the snow banks, driving sap in maples, herding deer along their annual, mysterious paths. Because of this, body after body, freshly hit or newly thawed from drifts, line the highway – delicate necks stretched back, alarmingly white bones jutting at odd angles from out of hides turning gray. Maybe it only seems worse than usual, but then how to account for Crow's ecstasy? I tell him we're here, in this moment balanced between dark and light, equator and pole. He just flaps his black wings, and keeps feeding.