FadingTraces

 Pressed into the earth like trilobites
  The spikey pinecones corrugate a trail
 Between the lake and woods. A foggy dawn
  Blurs the horizon. Waves play pat-a-cake
 Against the shore. A startled doe looks up,
   Recoils, then turns to leap a ragged hedge
   That with gray boulders forms the forest's edge.
 
 When I ran by here yesterday the ground
  Was soft --- so why are there no footprints now
 Recording that I passed? I glance behind
  And there my spoor is plain. The next to tread
 Here cannot miss it. Will she also ask
   Where her own tracks have gone, and search in vain,
   Like me, in hopes that some faint marks remain?

( ... after early morning jogs on country roads near Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, summer 2002 ... )

TopicPoetry - TopicLife - TopicRunning - TopicPersonalHistory - Datetag20040416

(correlates: JogLogFog2, RosesByOtherNames, JudyReWilderness, ...)