Now that I know his song, I start noticing the pattern. He’s there every morning, at the same spot, singing to his invisible kin. The Mohawk word shé:kon that we translate as hello, actually means “still, again.” As in “I still love you” – “shé:kon konnorón:kwa.” It makes sense to greet this bird in Mohawk, not only because we meet on an unceded land where he is native and I am a settler, but because he helped me to understand shé:kon as an expression of gratitude for the continuation of life. Shé:kon to the sun that rises in the East, a minute earlier with every day, shé:kon to the bird that sings at the same place every morning, preparing to read a new generation of beautiful red songbirds. Shé:kon to the wild geese that fly over neighbourhood, making us look up. Shé:kon to the crows, who know my patterns better than I know theirs. Shé:kon, as in “you are still here, I see you, I acknowledge you.”

A phrase in the Wolf Willow Institute email startled me today. Apocalypse means revelation. How could I forget this, given my past? I read the book a dozen times, yet, if someone asked me yesterday what the word meant, I’d say “end of the world” or “end of times.” Apocalypse means revelation. The question is what is being revealed. I you’d asked me now, I’d say cracks. It feels like they’re everywhere, like the very surface of time, space and reality is covered in cracks that look tiny at a first glance, but go deep. Monsters are hiding in them, but also possibilities and maybe the two are the same.