Merie Kirby

The Fool and her Dog


Only one card in the classic deck features winter: the five of pentacles, the card of your own misery hobbling barefoot and inadequately clothed through snow while everyone else is snug in a building whose stained glass windows glow like vacation photos from the tropics. But here I am, March 15, one hour south of the Canadian border, snowbanks on either side of the sidewalk above my knees, a packed path of ice and snow obscuring concrete. No wind and above zero, so it is a beautiful day. Yes, the sky is grey and yes, three more inches are coming our way, but right now my coat is warm, my scarf a bright yellow plaid shot through with violet, my grey wool mittens patched with bright blue felt, my son’s knit hat pulled over my tangled morning hair. At my feet my grey dog thrusts his nose into snow, huffs the footprints on the ground, stops and listens until I hear it, too, another dog barking three blocks away. He gives a brief bark back, returns to the work of tugging me forward to the next scent. We both stop and look up when we hear it - a song blooming like a bright spring rose on a bare branch – a robin, somewhere, somehow, at last.