1962 or '63
Mid-March. I always think of my father working at the woodpile, and myself tapping maples. Snow's half gone, some bare ground, some crusted snow drifts flecked with a winter's worth of wind driven bark and twigs stripped from nearby trees. Out in the middle of the field, less debris, but still bits of straw or feathers, or whatever skims the fastest on thin crust. What's left of winter's drama is fossilized in March's freeze and thaw -- a broken stem of Queen Anne's Lace lies in its cold imprint, the scant remains of a kill marked by its frozen blood. I notice these things in March. It's the time between seasons, a place between worlds: out from under the blanket of winter, yet not merged into the moment of summer. I see the shortening shadow. I count even paced footsteps. I hang my sap buckets made from my father's old George Washington pipe tobacco cans with homemade wire bails. I hang my buckets from the maples that line the stone wall that runs f...