BJZ Poems and Musings

I love winter, and unlike some northerners who choose to spend more time in southern climes in the colder months, we like to head north and chase the snow. One of the things that snow reveals is the activity of the animal world, much of it that happens when we are asleep. The tracks of deer, fox, mink, muskrats, squirrels, birds – each have their distinctive signature in the snow. It’s a delight to walk, cross country ski, or snow shoe through a winter landscape, decipher the animal tracks, and imagine them in that space a few hours, or even minutes before. Sometimes a scent will accompany the tracks. This poem, initially written in 2005 and recently revised describes such a winter walk.

Tracks and Scents

The good snow, with the unwelcome thaw,
Becomes sodden. Animal tracks are cast as if
In wet plaster. Little herds of deer wander in
The brush out back, leaving crowded, cloven
Prints, dizzying in their randomness.

The air is humid, hovering; it holds a scent,
Not of deer, but of fox urine – pungent, musky
I know he was there, making rounds, squirting
His calling card. But whither his tracks?

The path whirls with imprints – deer here, deer there;
Rabbit tracks take the off ramp into the briars.
Staring long enough, it emerges in its simplicity,
Some crushed by deer hooves, but then one, and another –
Round, elegant, single file, tracks of the transient fox;
A waving line of asterisks
Wandering a puzzled page.

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