Footprints In the Snow
Walking under overcast sky
I trod through drifted snow,
no longer bearing allegiance
to platitudes disguised as wisdom
spun in gingerbread houses of the holy,
an asymmetrically challenged splinter
on a white horizon,
leaving a trail of footprints
on my frozen path.
Behind me lies the ranch house,
shutters closed in rapid eye movement,
dreaming of acres of wheat and barley
gleaming in July's opaque sunlight.
They will not know I've gone,
will assume I'm out walking.
Only as gray dusk settles
on the porcelain landscape
will they wonder where I am.
In my dark coat and cap,
shouldering a pack,
I move past the fence posts
where snow mounds like the litter
of attic antiques reciting memories
in foreign tongues.
One leafless elm bears witness
to my departure, waving
in benign breeze.
Lest my tears freeze I hold them back.
Though my footprints sprint backwards
in the charcoal of sacrosanct earth
I must stay to my gospel:
to the naked eye the flat distance
may only promise glaciers,
but I seek the aurora borealis
hidden in daylight's dim emergence,
where the crocus blooms
in barren existence.
11/29/18
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