I’m not the first to be thankful for a November walk amidst the drooping oaks, the rain-wet sedges, the bog birch. Far from it. There are the turkeys, for one; the deer bounding off the main trails, their telltale white tails flying up before becoming lost in autumnal camouflage; the sandhill cranes gliding overhead and caterwauling in the glades.

As I walk in the fog across Cherokee Marsh, I can’t help thinking about time and changing seasons and the mysteriousness of life and, ultimately, death.

There’s a fire here, too. One of life. One that continues regardless of temperature or the level of particulate matter wafting through the air.

She was an acorn once. She’s an oak now. An oak, and maybe a branch, too, of a mighty oak: our family.