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JANUARY: FIRST LIGHT I retrace the path of the old railroad tracks just before light. No noise: the barn owl drifting into sleep, the birds not yet awake. The iron scars have been melted down for a war long fought and gone. Then the evening edged out by the first band of light, across the strips of trees. I know I don¹t have long to go: the sleepless night that brought me to the woods behind the house is over now, and what fears I had I left behind me there. In the distance I make out rabbit tracks and behind them, something larger, a dog perhaps, on its trail. The trail leads nowhere and the rabbit¹s safe. A world without predators: the parent¹s dream. Why won¹t it pass? Look: the starling¹s pulled that ribbon of worm, the day¹s unraveling, we¹re moving on, exhausted, ready to begin.