Salvation for the bee: early pastel crocus, fringed yellow aconite, sweet drooping snowdrops. Word will out in late winter weather. Parched and hungry bees emerge from months of chilly sleep and embrace the blooms. Nourished, hydrated, they dance their way day to day to the fine quickening greenery of spring.

Deborah writes fiction, flash, and creative non-fiction in northwestern Montana. Her work has been published in Thin Air Magazine, Ekphrastic Review and Common Ground among others. Her story, “Hardened Road,” was long listed in CRAFT’s 2019 Short Fiction Contest. Her flash, “Family Legend,” was anthologized in Ekphrastic Review’s Lucky Seven Writing Marathon, 2022, judged by Meg Pokrass.