ManicDDaily

An Older Lady Walking Out In The Teens (Farenheit)

Sun masks the cold, sort of.
I think, as I walk out, of a thin blanket
thrown over an elephant in a living room–
you are sure something looms, but can’t quite make out
its toes.

Or maybe the toes are all you’d see–
maybe, in fact, the toes would be all that actually sticks out
from under
that blanket.

All I know is that I keep stepping through the tracks
of feet out here–
the sewing machine stitch of mice (the seams running straight
into our house’s foundation),
the tricorne sloop
of a hare,
the deeper divide of hooves,
and up the snow-blazed hill, the beaded cicatrice
of vole tunnel.

But I am tracking youth and vigor
and so trek slowly down a ravine where only snips
of the sun’s thin blanket (and me) slip
through the firs, and wonder, once I’ve slid down,
how to cross the small stream, how to ford
the ice-rivered gush, whether–even if I manage to edge farther
along the steep–I’ll find a possible pass,
when I notice the imprint of paws marking a path
over the snow-crowded stones
and follow with clumsy boots
the way chosen
by the animal.

Though these are big prints, the cluster of some being distinctly
carnivorous–so even as I follow,
a part of me longs
to turn back, and I hold tightly
to the large stick I use to stake my passage–
happy in its sharp point, its snub wooden muzzle–

The sun blinks both eyes
when I get to field again,
a there where almost any step will do–
and yet I find myself following the tracks still,
those paws whose imprint looks both like a heart
and a brain, a small hive, a huge
berry–

wanting not to see the creature
and yet also to spot him–
How is it that we so crave connection
with the wild–we with our cold-toed boots
and our elephants in
the living room–

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A draftish poem for Poetry Pantry on Poets’ United.  Note that the pics above are of tracks, but not a close-up of the paw print.  Below are some pics of the tunnels of animals under the snow, and also a bigger stream than the one I crossed–but you get the idea re the freeze–and elephants!  (The fabric a beautiful gift from a family member who kindly brought it for me from a military tour in Afghanistan.)  (All photos are mine, all rights reserved.)