A fresh dust settled
on this snow, unswept,
where rabbits and moles
wrote words with foot, and claw.

Making myself light,
stepping in silence,
I test, a stroke survivor.
Toes drag on the rice paper top.

Each foot I place
in expectation of the drop,
descent through zones
of ice and snow.

This crust either
the first of many tiers,
or the last of every brittle layer
that ever held me up.

But each step
sends me to touch
the earth below,
cold, tiny, slow.

Thin wafers of ice
slice my shins,
erase the animal alphabet
and what it may have said.

Earth, frost-hard,
and this human
pulled to it, knee deep
in obstinate drifts.

Caring less what he ruins,
what's left ahead.
Remains as he walks a poem in winter,
snowbound, and unsolved.