In the margins of my planner, a witch’s notes, or the botanical furnishings of a fairy tale: purple toadflax, hart’s tongue, maidenhair spleenwort, egg yolk lichen.

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On my walk I watched as ravens squabbled over chips, chasing each other from rooftop to rootop. Later a robin, eying me, perched on the ledge of my bedroom window. I was smoking a sneaky cigarette, watching the light shift with the wind, the mountain rising shadowy and russet above golden and carmine treetops. By afternoon, I had written down some lines of poetry by Denise Levertov: “To speak of sorrow / works upon it / moves it from its / crouched place barring / the way to and from the soul’s hall—”

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