You’ve waded through the deep, fresh snow
into a forest clearing. Around a stump of an oak,
healthy mushrooms used to grow in August,
in the shade of wide foliage and blackberry bushes.
Th e snow was marked by hundreds of footprints,
layered like bones in a prehistoric
cemetery of animals. As if those who were to survive
entered Noah’s Ark a moment ago.
Here were two-legged and four-legged prints of forest animals,
imprints of tiny toe-palms, as if the creatures touched
the earth as if it were heaven. In the middle a shallow crater,
out of which, inexplicably, a wisp of smoke issued.
Not a soul around. A faint whistle, as if a remote world
fl ew through the space. Th e white CD of the stump
played abandoned silence by itself.
Slowly you waded back to the edge of the forest,
where your daughter was waiting. You left
behind yourself no trace.