Web photo courtesy of MDC

At Just Light the Folded News

At just light the folded news in a plastic sleeve lands slap on the driveway,

tossed by the analog town-crier carrier whose car doesn’t stop at every house

the way I remember the paper being delivered by kids on bikes in my first town.

Our up-the-street hill wasn’t as angled as this long-time ski slope now topped

by townhouse condos, a small cluster on the crest visited by foxes and deer and

by New England birds, checking back in this spring, at least the ones who

flew somewhere for the winter, the ruby-throated and sky-blue chested, all

welcome to our balcony perch facing the gray-brown New Hampshire hills to

the north and slight west, the view at the top of this rise named by custom for

tribal meeting-grounds, hundreds, thousands of years of forest time, lake time,

the high water pushing a slim but feisty river through the downtown mill yard

of offices, hardware mecca, studios, flatbread pizzeria, pubs, and coffee shop,

whose beating dollar heart is a good sign this spring on the local front where

most of the citizens want a safe-and-sound routine, not too much to ask in days

when the morning news of the universe carries more pain and chaos than are

helpful to us and our dogs and cats, neighbor birds, and the close red fox.

— Paul Marion, 3/29/19