Welcome, Orion

Taking the pup out every hour into the new garden I came to notice that Orion stood over his pen, night after night, intense in the icy black sky. I'd often wondered why the ancients didn't call it the butterfly, because that is exactly how Orion looks, but standing in the lost space of the night, with the wind growling and the damp, black fens around us, I realised how inappropriate that would be. I looked down at the tiny hunter by my feet, nine weeks old but happy as a wolf in the frost and felt an entirely unexpected connection to the earth and the night.

Welcome, little hunter.