One afternoon when I was in Salem, VA, I went into an antique store. I perused the aisles and noticed some old photographs in a display case. I asked the proprietor if he had any more. He looked around the store, then at the front door. From beneath the cash register he revealed a stack of color photographs. "Crispy critters," he said, and handed the stack to me. I scrolled through the first few. An Iraqi man could be seen charred and hanging out a truck's window. Another one, and another one, of similar mutilation. Why do soldiers photograph the results of their acts of violence?

Today the woodstove's smoke has blown into the meadow. The wind either stopped or fell slightly, so the yellowed, cedar-smelling cloud is just hovering, still.

This is a picture of the hawk that killed one of my chickens today.

The smoke has also filled the neighboring woods and, the sun being angular because it is winter, has illuminated the trees' shadows among the forest. Walking by them earlier, I noticed patterns shifting like light as if seen through a slotted fence.

The hawk had eaten the chicken's liver, which was crystal-cranberry in color. The thing was only five weeks old. One of the other chickens, an Aruacana, was apparently attacked in the skirmish. It is wounded and cannot walk. I will probably have to kill it in the morning out of mercy.