There is an ebbing
and a flowing
we wander in want of, muskrats
tap-tapping the ice, the ice itself
cracking, pulling
into itself, the way we do
when knowing will no longer suffice. Fifteen below,
let us sit in the snow
and sing sad songs
of kings. Let us walk,
as I have, now, into the quiet of pines,
and find beneath the breeze
turkey tracks filling, granule
by granule, with windblown
snow, and beneath the snow, like the soul
of one forever circling, like hands
clenched in mittens clenching nothing, this
walking, this seeming, this
seeing, beneath which
a whisper: It took you so long to arrive.
Thrice the pond froze, thrice they assured us
you hadn’t survived. I follow
the five-fingered tracks of raccoon
until they lead onto ice,
then tire tracks that K and back-turn
onto themselves, and then
these that fit my feet
but perfectly, my own, perhaps,
some other day, striding
then ending, leaving me
to wonder why I paused here
of all places, where the view
is obscured, the bank non-descript, a blank
of snow sketched with needles of white pine, paused
for no reason,
knowing only that here once I stopped,
stood, and decided
it was time to turn back.
