
Feral Friends,
As long as the earth has spun her way around the sun there has been Samhain, Sauin — in any case pronounced sah-win to mark the halfway point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. As she rounds herself round the primal tide within the cell of every living thing desires the moon, this year to our eyes less than half but nonetheless always full. And so it is for the lovers of moons and juncos, russet rustles and the lingering of crickets, just one more time turtles belly-up logs on a thin afternoon under low-slung sun, looping buteos, stripping canopies showing off muscles. We can almost believe that we spin this orb under our feet with just the right poem, October at our backs, the weight of an eyelid on the cloudy horizon and a path that turns us ever wilder.
Love November in the woods,
Jack Phillips

Photos: Loess Hills Saunter by Kristin Zahra. Poets under Grandmother Oak by someone using Kristin’s phone.