SNOW NEAR SEPP ‘ S

The soft susurrus of ski on snow slows.
 Ahead and behind the pearly parallels
Silently blur with trillions of dancing crystals
Drifting over sleeping fathoms of snow.

Except for the distant clear scrawk of a raven,
The occasional tick tick of a few flakes
On glasses, and down keep the muffled surge and quake
Of pumping heart, sound has emptied, leaving

Shrinking scraps of blackish-greenish spruce
And alders to accent the white world of winter,
White on white, snow on snow. We enter
The barren realm, the frozen paradise

Of comets and icy space. The beauty is real,
Brutally probing, seductive, stronger than steel.

(15, April 4, 1992)

Comments

SEPP’s trail is in the White Mountains – in New Hampshire and Maine. It is near Mount Washington. My father climbed all 44 mountains over 4000 feet high both in the summer and winter. It was informally called the 4000 footer club.

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