My brown leather boot disappears into the
white, downy crust that covers the earth.

A few hundred steps later and I find myself by a pond--
a frozen halo caressing the edges, suddenly broken by
a heron taking flight.

Cardinals play in the branches above the water.

Thorned trees, the names of which I am uneducated on,
drop clumps of snow on my head.

My notebook is soaked; the ink, now in spiderwebs charged
by the water, s(preads)lithers to the outermost bounds of the lines.

I am happy.

I begin to step in the opposite direction of the lake, making my
own personal perforations in the snow.

I happen to find myself on a road.
Step, step, step, step. Up over a hill.

Is that the ghost of Thomas Merton that I hear, venturing alongside of me?
No, I suppose not. It’s the sound of silence broken by the beat of my steps.

A puppy approaches me, dragging its owner along. I give it a pet, admire its
fox-red fur, and then we part.

I hear an engine start and the scrape, scrape, scrape
of a brush against a window.

I venture past four cows, who somehow find grass to graze on underneath the thick,
white powder.

Around a curve, over train tracks, each tie causing the snow to ripple.
Across a bridge, over a creek and into the snowy hills of Kentucky I go.