[01:04.000]where the rats long fed;
[01:05.531]sweep out our shame—and in its place we'll make a bower for love,
[01:10.109]a splendid marriage-bed fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
[01:16.076]And when he comes,
[01:17.398]our murdered dreams shall wake;
[01:19.633]and when he comes,
[01:20.936]all the mute birds shall sing.
[01:56.592]rhododendron slick,
[01:57.664]and now climbing into an old-growth forest whose steepness had spared it from ever being logged.
[02:03.711]But even here,
[02:05.160]where a good oak-hickory canopy sheltered the ridge top,
[02:08.996]last night's rain had pounded through hard enough to obscure the tracks.
[02:14.215]She knew the animal's size from the path it had left through the glossy undergrowth of mayapples
[03:22.000]and now climbing into an old-growth forest whose steepness had spared it from ever being logged.
[03:28.339]But even here,
[03:29.678]where a good oak-hickory canopy sheltered the ridge top,
[03:33.150]last night's rain had pounded through hard enough to obscure the tracks.
[03:38.417]She knew the animal's size from the path it had left through the glossy undergrowth of mayapples,
[03:44.323]and that was enough to speed up her heart.
[03:47.534]It could be what she'd been looking for these two years and more.
[03:51.655]This lifetime.
[03:53.111]But to know for sure she needed details,
[03:56.033]especially the faint claw mark beyond the toe pad that distinguishes canid from feline.
[04:02.800]That would be the first thing to vanish in a hard rain,
[04:05.824]so it wasn't going to appear to her now,
[04:08.478]however hard she looked.
[04:10.105]Now it would take more than tracks,
[04:12.401]and on this sweet, damp morning at the beginning of the world,
[04:16.098]that was fine with her.
[04:18.053]She could be a patient tracker.
[04:20.563]Eventually the animal would give itself away with a mound of scat
[04:24.413](which might have dissolved in the rain, too)