Late afternoon, alone in the trees,
The quiet creak of skis through snow,
a shy approach, your stealth.
A pattered line of rabbit prints
veers off into evening.
Think of shadow, someone
leaving, somebody else bedding down.
This kind of softness brushes your shoulders,
keeps your secrets
safe. Hush, hush, your human tracks;
your binding’s metal tick; you’re moving through
the natural world and understanding
nothing. Day’s last sun gives up the fight
like something in you
sacrificed, something bright that glints like blood
staining the snow beneath the trap,
that melts in ice and light on spruce and finally
ends as glistening.
~ from The Dream World (McClelland and Stewart, 2008)
