looking around
you keep in mind the profound
surface of things
“House, Tree, Sky”, Martha Collins
Burnished with a hard blue wax, my skis
slip into these woods—the jack pine,
the juniper, the spruce. I’m learning
to glide, to relax, to pole,
not push, in the two-lined tracks.
Deeper into the woods, cold
whispers between purple shadows;
a cardinal in the throat of winter
holds the world stark white
against himself and sings.
The air, like a mint,
is formal.
The contours of winter, nearer
the deeper I go;
and the stillness I am skiing through
deeper still.