Our crossing is a brief one, best spent bearing witness to all that we see: honoring what we find noble, tending what we know needs our care, recognizing that we are inseparably connected to all of it, including what is not yet upon us, including what is already gone. We are here to keep watch, not to keep.
The poet Alison Hawthorne Deming wrote: “In ecology, the term edge effect refers to a place where a habitat is changing — where a marsh turns into a pond or a forest turns into a field. These places tend to be rich in life forms and survival strategies.”