Untracked
I ski now, untracked,
into the falling snow
that falls into the trough
of hard snow left
by yesterdays’ travelers,
so that the going,
through the snow-bowed
pines, is easy yet new,
my skis buried, only
the tips, pushing
tiny bow waves, visible
and making the smallest
of sounds, a faint
hissing in the full silence
of the forest.
My breathing, the fixed
flowing rhythm of arms and legs,
the still woods –
The world with all
of its burdens falls away.
I think of my 57 years,
the mountains I have climbed,
nights under the wheeling stars.
All of the women I have loved
and the one I love now
with all the fullness of my years.
And I think, too, of companions gone –
men and women – carried out
of my life by death or the strong
currents of life,
And the falling untracked snow
and what lies at the heart of it all.