Almost missed this as I walked past with an armload of cut limbs to throw off the trail. Anchored into the whorl of a small Engelmann spruce, a cup of lichens and grasses, with a few downy feathers. Rained and snowed on, sprinkled with lodgepole pine and larch needles.

They were small, they who made this. Will they come back and use it again, or will they start over somewhere else? Did the young who were raised here survive? Will they return to these trees? Did the air fill with their songs, or were they quiet? Where are they now?

I wonder. Questions arise, and feelings too. Sad at the abandoned home, or did it serve its purpose perfectly? Hopeful about another turning of the seasons, yet that means I too am a year older. Questions and wondering, no answers. Maybe sometimes it is better to wonder than to know.