New beauty
meets us at every step in all our
wanderings.
–John Muir
. . . he must have stepped too near the lake sank through soft snow down into ice
in snowshoes he was an experienced hiker in his sixties from the town of Joshua Tree
came right over the pass he must have stepped too near the lake . . . I must have
camped overnight thinking of those miles to the stars I must have watched his backpack
un-snag from the melting ice and float in the lake I must have wondered if someone
was attached to it because of the way it tilted in the lake . . . I must have woken
to sunlight pouring through me this blade of grass peeping through snow and to the
helicopter hovering above the pack with the pilot pointing to my body . . . I must
have gone and stepped too near the lake . . .
an osprey rises from the water fish slapping sunlight
Forthcoming in The Annual British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology
