Footfalls in the Crunchy Snow Dark

Check engine light

bobs on home with us

along the intrepid cold creek

of January early dark,

orange beacon of warning

that I ignore a full 97% of the time.

The Buddha said, "Do not try

to figure out karma.  It will make you

crazy."  Here I am,

believing all the things I do

like it's not determined,

like it's not free.  

To get to this seat

in this night with these stars

and this lined face beside me,

was my birth sufficient?

There's the question,

too sharp and beautiful and glassy

to hold or to look directly at,

that photograph was lost in the fire,

now suddenly returned by a stranger.

Now the rhythm of forgetting, of laughter

and lip-biting and absent humming, slowly

takes the wheel, a friend and enemy or neither,

and turns across the perfect icy river.

Someone waits for you somewhere,

in this world, a previous or later one, 

chopping a few things in the warm yellow kitchen

and dancing a bit back and forth to herself,

real gentle like it's nothing at all.