JOHN PEPIN

“Let me ride, ride, ride I got to feel free inside,” – Kevin Cronin

I saw some footprints in the snow, where they went, I did not know.

I decided I would follow them – up the hill ahead and down the other side.

Underneath the mighty maples I proceeded, beneath the more delicate paper birches, scattered beech trees and the oaks, with their left past summertime leaves fluttering in the soft, but biting, wind.

I traveled deliberately, watching those trees around me for signs of life, listening to the woods for sounds betraying the presence of birds and animals.

Were there markers here along this route? Was I missing signs or signals as I walked? I didn’t know.

I kept moving. I kept watching. Aware.

I stepped hesitantly, feeling the heartbeat of the creature who had walked before me into the heart of the forest.

At times, the tracks would disappear under a drift or wisp of snow that had blown across the way forward.

I imagined that when nighttime falls, these drifts move around each other in an extravagant dance – like one from a Tchaikovsky ballet.

Ice dancing, with the sound of ice skates slicing the frozen ground.

But it’s only the snow and the wind.

When it’s over, tired from all the activity, the wispy, snow-wind figures fall wherever they are like a rag doll might tumble into the arms of a child’s rocking chair.

Morning light brings sight of the drifts lying here and there.

They make no sound. They are not dead, but only sleeping. When the woodlands darken and the moon rises into the ice-cold skies, they will dance again.

I see places where the bark of the maples has been scored and scarred. I don’t know what did it. It would have to be something strong and powerful to tear away that rigid and tough bark protecting the tree.

Maybe the claws of a bear or the teeth of a saw?

In another place, evidence remains of a lightning strike that was likely borne out of a late summer thunderstorm.

Part of this tree too is scarred, but also burned black into the heartwood.

This tree is standing now, but only like a wounded soldier who will eventually faint and drop to the earth. The wound is too deep, searing vital organs.

I can almost hear sounds of the tree moaning in agony as the winds nudge the giant this way and that. The song of his battalion warrior surrounds the others still standing tall, those who will remain to defend this forest when this soldier here falls away.

The air is getting colder with the sky turning Persian pink in the distance, then rosy- red, chestnut brown, Egyptian blue and then finally, a sad and lonely dusty black.

For a while, I lost sight of the tracks.

I found that I had been standing, listening to my own breathing.

The fact that it seems so loud is testament to the silence of the woods around me. Almost on cue, an owl pipes up from a mile or so down along the lakeshore. Like any of us, I guess, he’s looking to make connection in this haunted world.

He seems too far off for me to call back to. But I remind myself that if I can hear him, he can hear me. I decide against a call back so I don’t disturb the tomblike tranquil setting here so close to me.