Dear Wigleaf,

Maybe you don't want to think about it. It's not as if the land's gone, only changed. Excavated is the word they used. I guess that fits. It looks unburied, gutted. A shame. And it's not as if it was yours or mine. But if you're like me, which in this instance, I suspect you are, you probably convinced yourself it belonged to itself. And you probably miss it, the way it stood between us, sweet and safe, like a mother holding one of each of our hands.

Do you remember its winter aloofness, the untrampled snow, like a face that discouraged questions and confidences? Do you remember its spring softening, relenting? Its summer generosity? Its autumn hush? 

I saw you there once, years ago, wading through the goldenrod of August, vastly budded, on the brink of a bloom. You'd brought your scissors and were gathering Queen Anne's lace. You looked restless, upset. I could tell you'd been crying.

I stepped back, intending to leave you alone, when a woodpecker hammered a trunk. You glanced up. The bird flew out of the branches and sent its shadow over you.

I followed the woodpecker's flight according to this shadow. It swept over the thick sprawl of greenness, the humming green, green, green. Then I left, too. But I remember us there. I hope I will always remember. The moving darkness, the wandering you, the wondering me.