Learning to Live in Subtraction

An excerpt from a piece published in The Mockingbird's latest journal

A year after we moved to a little cottage on the edge of an Adirondack river, a windstorm rushed in, catching itself on the small island across from our home. As it blew, it broke off the tops of box elders and beeches, birch and willows, a few maples and at least one poplar tree that I can see. On an early spring morning, before the buds have burst and…