A soft wind southwesterly, something like

The wind in the Far West they call the chinook,

About three o’clock, we yet high on the mountain,

Began. Snow softened to burden our snowshoes.

And if you stood perfectly still, so still

You could hear your own heart, stroke by stroke,

You could hear the forest of spruces—drip,

Drip, drip—and you felt that all Time, and your life,

Was like that in motionless silence, and held you

Your breath to be sure you could hear your own heart

Maintain, with no falter, that rhythm that drops

Now defined. Were you sure you remembered your name?

But there was the A-frame, the camp, snow sliding

Down the steep roof-pitch with channels of black

Where all winter your eye had loved whiteness, and now

Roof-edge dripped in the rhythm that redefined

Life. And the sun, in pink pillows of mist,

Sank, and you felt it gasping for breath.

You felt it might suffocate, not rise

Again. Inside the A-frame you found

Yourself sweating, though only one eye of a coal

Yet winked. You built up only enough

To cook by, racked up the snowshoes—all this

With no word. What word is to say when the world

Has lost its heart, is dripping, is flowing, is counting

Itself away? Cooking is but

An irritation. The pre-dinner whiskey

Is tongue-hot but tangless, like rot-gut—not what

It is. When you turn on the hi-fi, your friend

Says: “None of that ordure tonight.” In silence

You eat—silence except for the eaves-drip.

No banking the fire on a night like this.

You wake in the dark to the rhythm of eaves.

Try to comfort yourself by thinking of spring.

Of summer’s fecundity and the plunge

Into silvery splash-spray. Of gold and flame

In benediction of autumn. Of snow’s first

Night-whisper and dawn light on peak-top. But eaves,

To you heart, say one thing. Say: drip. Say: drip.

You must try to think of some answer, by dawn.