Some Other Distance

And we stand in the bright cold and watch crows overhead. And we are aware of watching. Can one say the crows circle in an interior way? One does and is not otherwise mollified. Thus writing, this writing.

Dusty snow on the trail obscuring patches of ice makes for slippery going. We are always dancing, always skating over surfaces. Delight lies in going down. The dog steps gingerly onto the frozen pond and I wait, thinking of you. Kisses in the cold, that contrast.

Things break, or seem to, and yet something else goes on. Often before the sun rises, watching my breath out back, I think of the many distances I know, and how even when bridged, some other distance remains. The cardinal comes from the North always, always following the female who knows the way. One learns, one does. I carry my coffee to the window and drink it tired, watching the sky to the east flare with violet mare's tails.

Choice is the last illusion and so cannot be either a container or a referent. And yet. How I long to sleep, and to find the arms in which sleep is not dangerous but safe, even - perhaps - welcome. And what then? In a sense - an important sense - the hill climbs us as well.