I woke up crying and walked in the desert where after it rains it smells like honey and little birds sputter in puddles

At a cabin up north; a place beyond season-- inside there was the warmth of a fire but the idea of cold outside, windowpanes steaming, sun bright, but pale yellow, like it is in the winter in the east. Friends gathered in the small dining room around a stove. J. was there, it wasn't surprising, we all accepted that he wasn't alive but had come to talk to us. He told us he understood how much we all cared. We told him again that we cared. Everyone hugging. We'd burned mint leaves in the fire. He said the woods always smelled like smoke and mint, walking to Saguaro Lake in the morning. A. wrote/remembered: how there was always ice in the tea kettle in the morning, but how they'd make it ca-chunk /ca-chunk/ melt. He said he wished he wouldn't have done it. He said it was good to hear so many people say his name.