My boot tracks are the only ones in this crunchy snow. I’m following my own footsteps from my path through this same wood
Yesterday, a walk I take as often as I can.
There is a tree that’s fallen on the trail, landing in the shoulder of another which did not break or yield,
So it’s suspended for now over the path, hundreds of pounds of wood waiting to fall,
And yet as long as I’ve been going on this trail it has not moved.
The first tracks that aren’t from me have shown up now, a fox or something. I wonder what it wanted
And how the animals all cope with this much snow
And the temperature in the 20s. And I remember
Laura replying to me, about how that’s what their winter coats are for. How did she get here -
Am I conflating memories of two different walks? Or was she speaking from my memory like a dream?
How long until I become an ancestor? I’ll fall over dead onto my neighbors’ shoulders and refuse to fall all the way down;
I’ll speak out from our memories like a dream.
But I am not alive like this wood is; there are no tracks in the snow in me at all,
And what weather should I dress for, when I go out the door that frigid day?