(editor’s note – Bob’s Knob is a hill that sits southeast of my home and overlooks a good portion of the Owasco Valley. I named it that after my ex-Brother-in-law’s untimely death many years ago as a place where I often go to meditate on the meaning of life.)

Up the top of Bob’s Knob I watched the hawk circle across the sky, blue as the bluest ocean, cloudless as cloudless could be. I turned to the four directions to see what I could see. To the east was a little forest, a tree line stood to the south, a woodland obscuring the valley to my west and a lake extending to the north capped by drumlins. I felt the frozen ground beneath my feet, covered with the leftover stalks of last year’s corn, the power of the seed within that earth waiting to be born. Oh I could hear the spring coming in the crowing of the crow and I gave thanks for just being alive and all I’ve come to know.