We walk through the woods, with a slanting winter spring sun playing peek-a-boo among the birch trees hurling long shadows across our path. A thin crust of snow still covers the moss, but as soon as we meet the sun it greets us with a hesitant kiss of warmth.

We talk iterate over and over how the war came back again, not a silent proxy war but the blatant attack on a neighbor from a man with imperial ambitions. We feel hope from the news that it does not seem to go the tyrant’s way.. We feel sorrow for both the innocent and the misled soldiers, knowing that from the dark valley of wars the climb back to the cold mountain of freedom the road will be steep and treacherous.

But we know that we have to keep climbing.

light returning
to salmon-colored heavens —
the wild song of tits