Bo practice is always weighted by the heaviness of the stick. Yesterday’s practice felt heavy indeed. My corner of the yard had turned into a cemetery.

As I prepared the field, I found in my path a newly deceased juvenile blue jay, dark heavy beak, one wing fanned, its clean blue and white patterned feathers on display. Carrying the body to an untraveled, wooded spot, I teared up, pretty certain this was the jay I’d seen the day before, like a teenager, experimenting with his reflection in a window. Found another blue jay corpse during practice, further along in deterioration, bones and downy feathers crushed into moist earth under the lightning-struck oak. A beautiful dragonfly wing, attached to a small remnant of dragonfly body, was catching light in the grass, like clear paned glass. And my spider companion had disappeared with her sturdy magnificent work, less than 24 hrs after its construction.

The Mississippi kites I love, the huge raccoon, and yes, the coyotes—they’ve got to eat. Like most of us humans, they’re not vegetarians. But even if no animals ate other animals, each now or later takes a final breath—every pet, person, hawk, ant, fish, lizard I see. I may not usually be aware of it, but (like mating, birth, living) death is happening all around.

Yesterday morning was no warning or bad sign. It was just another day.

There is death. It just is.