Feral Friends,

Perhaps because it was the first sunny Sunday in weeks or the way the heavy silence embraced us when we paused our crunchy meander or the ferity of passionate friends so wildly in love with nature. Or the way the churry-churry bluebirds a beep-beep-beep nuthatch a distant kaw kaw crow bounced their chides and chortles through the oaky basswood hickory-woods where the last humans to pass this way were none other than us a year ago this month. For whatever reason, azure rufous underbelly snow a bluebird makes haiku, always a poem when you least expect it or by now, perhaps we do. 

Just walk, wait, love winter deeply. Let the wild things bring the poems. 

— Jack Phillips

_{Photos: eastern bluebird (and poem) by Troy Soderberg; wild artists on frozen springs, January 28th, 2024 in Fremont County, Iowa.}