Everywhere was abundance, fullness. The season was turning, but summer was still welling, overflowing every bank and verge. Skeins of migrating geese flew above, fleeing ahead of the coming cold, their wingbeats forceful and the leave while you can of their urgent, strident calls punctuating the air. A pair of deer locked horns in the lee of the wood. I startled a milk-white barn owl out of a pine above me. It swooped over my head, turning slowly, showing me the white underside of its wings and body and—for a moment, I was sure—looking down at me.
