Paths in the snow

My large backyard is like a snow-filled field
Two feet deep everywhere but the middle.
A hill’s piled higher there, a proof of wind,

Like the long streaks across the white surface.
Of footprints no mark or slight impression
Except where boots have walked out to the shed.

My son is standing at the edge, bundled,
Gloved and booted against the freezing cold,
Sent out to get the shovel for the walk.

This is a pause as he’s considering
Which way to go, and looks both left and right,
Noting the tracks his father’s feet have made

Before, an easy route and quick to reach
His destination. He turns that way and
Takes a step, then stops in contemplation.

Is the cold too much? Adjusting his gloves?
Should I knock on the window to ask him?
But then he sets out, snow up to his knees,

And heads for the middle and the hill,
Snow on his thighs and mounting higher still,
Goes through the crest, and halving the smooth

Plane of that unmoving wave like a scythe,
Sows his own foot impressions in the yard
In an L-shaped line toward the shovel

In the shed. In he goes and gets the tool
Comes out and smiles, sees me in the window.
A fist pump, he returns the way he came,

A new path in the yard, not made by me.
Two routes now graven in the shifting snow
To vanish with the next strong winter’s blow.

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~ by reeven on January 16, 2012.