Trackless
Jan 1 2015


Where the lake narrows
and the ice thickens
and the steeply rising shore
funnels the wind,
powder snow
in dust-devils, eddies

and gusts.
We are spectral forms
emerging from swirling curtains of snow
and as quickly swallowed up,

forging on

heads bowed.



The surface, cleanly scoured.
And our tracks, covered
ahead, and in back

in untrammelled white,

as if we were weightless
or had learned levitation
or been dropped-in from space
and stuck at this very spot,

planted in trackless snow.
How enlightenment must feel,
no future, or past
just the eternal immaculate present.

All the evidence
air-brushed away.
So no one will know
where we crossed the lake
ascended the slope
slipped seamlessly into the trees.
How escape must feel,
untraceable
and unrecalled.



All winter long
walking on water like minor gods.
But come the thaw
we will stand on shore, and gaze across,
finding it hard to believe
the world once lay at our feet.

That we could so lightly walk.

And anywhere possible.
And no one would know we were gone.



These are things I think about, crossing the narrows (which really is a wind tunnel!): trying to locate the path, filled in by the wind with powder snow; the feeling of tracklessness (not to mention the feeling of being so insignificantly small) on this featureless white expanse; and the brilliance of freeze-up, opening up travel in otherwise impassable back country. But mostly, it's a poem about escape and anonymity; a kind of fugue state that white-outs the past.

There is a hint of magic realism here -- unusual for me -- with its spectres and spacemen and levitation. I like the slightly mystical feel of air-brushing away origin and intention, past and future, all evidence of having passed. And I've always enjoyed the paradox of winter, when mere mortals gain the supernatural power of walking on water. So it's playful poem, with a glint of mischief in its eye.

I'm also pleased with some of the imagery here. Especially the "spectral forms/ emerging from swirling curtains of snow/ and as quickly swallowed up,/ forging on/ heads bowed." (I had in mind old black-and-whites of polar explorers.) I like how, early on, this sets a tone and establishes an image I hope will stick with the reader right to the end. But I think the line that succeeds best is "immaculate present": how the depiction of a man on a trackless path becomes instantly metaphysical.