“Marking Up the Path”

A poem for the big weather coming our way!

Ice and snow have gotten under the skin of the trees,
scaley bark and trunk cold to my touch, so human,
so animal, standing there alone, while we, passing
by, have marked up the path with our tracks, bird
scratch, the sneaker footprints I followed for a while,
diamond-pattern overtaken by another, oval-sole,
in the confusion I made up a story, and then they
parted, leaving me alone with a fiction, and why I
write poetry, the stubborn, riled-up bark in my hand.

Minnie Bruce Pratt

Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivs
Creative Commons 2010