Hush

Snowshoe, we took the ridge line parallel to Parley’s Summit

I was bundled in my blue coat, she in her red

we bled our colors into the white of the world

she outpaced me, pulling ahead in a delicate duck walk

leaving a herringbone trail that chased her into the aspen

I was not practiced, I floundered and felt my sweat

stopped in a clearing, she was a whisper and crackle ahead

unzipped my coat and drank so deep, the salt and water

against my flesh cooled now, a frigid hush

I had never been that cold, I felt the press of the ice

the weight of the snow as it compacted the earth

shivered beneath the steel of the swirled sky

barren as the branches, stripped by the season

my breath like my soul leaving, forming

vapors against the dawn

 

I feel the season turning, again, the cold coming like a fist

seeking to press me under the weight of the snow

but this time I have built a home, walls and a roof

I have my fire to keep me warm, no snowshoes

she still leaves her tracks into the white,

calculates the geometric patterns of the flakes

while I have turned the winter away