Snowshoes

I remember the steps of spring

to the pace of rhythmic rotes

in pomp and circumstance anthems

played beneath a banner of allegiance

unto that temple in tokens

that lay at the end of rainbow.

 

How my heart swell in the anticipation

fall would be a pedestal of victory

before the winter came

then legends would swirl on tongues

and wounds would be covered in medallions.

 

But the snows fell just the same

the cold dug its fingernails into skin

whatever flowers grew in my soul

withered in the cruel, frozen trail

across that lost wilderness

where the fog devoured the horizon

until I feel into its lair,

hallow and weeping

no strength, nor vision to inspire

another print in that bleak and barren soil.

 

In the dizzy of disillusionment and ache

through that thick ivory haze

stirred an apparition

of the haunting face of vernal flashbacks,

like a dream revisited in Déjà vu shudders

struck a thunderbolt in my chest.

 

Couldn’t stop and die

amid this failed trek

with those eyes glaring their disappointment

at me if I lied down and succumb to the elements.

 

Driven by the power of that gaze,

pride rose again in the middle of the harshness,

just one more inch at a time

regardless of the fact the shoes were covered in snow.

 

Through all the silence stabbing doubts

perhaps I could have lied about my quitting,

made up some tale to appease the guilt,

but the image in the mirror,

which stared back in relentless view

would always know the truth

so it drug me when I couldn’t walk.