Long ago I saw photo by photographer William Davis that has stuck with me ever since. It's in the book, "If Mountains Die: A New Mexico Memoir," by John Nichols and Davis. It's a simple photograph of a magpie's imprint in the snow. For me, it's something that's difficult to wrap words around. With the imprint, the magpie gives itself away, marks its existence for the moment; but that bird's legacy is only a fading memory at its discovery. In a matter of days, hours, minutes, that frozen moment will be gone. But the photograph captures it, keeps the moment for us to see, and in doing so allows us to see more than that moment: we can see the time before it was there, the moment it happened and the time after it was gone. So I always look for footprints in the snow. I do my best to appreciate every one. These were in my back yard.

--Andy Sawyer