Footsteps

The waning days of winter are in many ways, the most torturous. We remember what is to come, we know what we have endured, and yet we find it difficult to believe that our expectations will once again, validate a new reality. The days grow warmer as the sun shakes off its vail of darkness. The trees begin to lose the naked embarrassment of winter, tempered only by the conspiracy of new light that accompanies it. The branches suddenly erupt with a tinged green glow that has seeped through the bark and lies proudly exposed after its long hibernation, no longer intimidated by the cold and dark. 

Patches of snow cling to existence.  The lifeless grass speckled with the ruins of the fallen sky. The sidewalks sheen, applied by the water returning to a state of fluidity, envied by the imprisoned lakes and ponds, reflects the skies smile.

The stretch marks of winter remain evident in the burgeoning soil that has swelled with the moisture it has held, since the last rains of fall. 

I walk to the edge of the pond, vacant of the chaos of summer, only lingering memories remain of dragon flies, swallows, a crickets chirp, a robins song, accompanied by the sounds of the newly risen.  A petrified slab of water frosted by the last sky to fall, glows in a crystalized maze of light and phantoms. Its stark beauty although absent of life, teams with the prospects of a tomorrow, the day after, but for now, content to remain petrified by the persistence of the cold that fell from the north, encasing all life in its grip.

“What’s those called?” the words uttered by a life that lacks the experience to appreciate the difference the seasons provide, and the ability to accept the reasoning provided, as youth has the ability to shut itself off from the deprivation of time by refusing to acknowledge it. 

“Footprints,” the answer does not appease the question, nor can it, but it is all I have to explain the image of snow compacted by a boot. We stand on what we assume is frozen earth, impossible to be sure, as the frozen mirage does not differentiate between what is temporary, and what is permanent. 

I remember what has been and what will be but explaining that concept to someone who has neither a past remembered, or a future envisioned, leaves me only to dream, it is all that I have left. 

The prints left behind, a reminder of a day I cannot forget, nor wish to. The vision of a yesterday shaken from a frozen past now haunting the present, refusing to leave.

There are lessons that permeate the requests of those that ask, those that demand because of reason, and those that reject advice, having no experience to differentiate between an edict and a warning. What might occur and what will occur, as it is predicted in the heavens matters little, when the reality no longer supports the hope instilled in it.

I look behind and find the sled tracks that have followed us to this place.  He being ignorant of facts related to capabilities credited by frozen ponds, stares into the hidden abys. I look past the consistency that supports what appears to be an impenetrable shield designed by nature, to protect what lies beneath. I can envision the forms that slip past the emaciated plants, starved of light, and the fasting bulbs that will emerge from the mud to serenade the medium, that protects their futures. 

How do I explain the lilies waiting to spring from the shallows and spread their green leaves on the water’s surface, to someone who has experienced so little of life.  He is not yet able to appreciate what is or what has been, as the lessons taught by experience are slow to come. Some lessons learned on our own, will be learned the hard way.

I remember that day, walking on the hardened water, its crystal blue hue a reflection of the sky above. Before the snow cast its shade on the glass river, it presents a clarity unmatched by dreams. This day, mimicking that day, we had walked arrogantly over the rivers water, the sun shining, the cold wind from the north ignored, eclipsed by the excitement generated by exploration, warmed our spirits.

I could only watch as the crystals exploded like a gun shot, pulling him into the moving water. I could only watch as he slipped between the crystalized window and the blue sky, the water pulling him along beneath its fractured surface, his red scarf trailing behind as if waving, his face turned towards the sun, an expression of surprise coupled with the resolve of having not had time to say goodbye, for the final time. 

I watched him slip beneath me, his hands pressed to the opaque coagulated crystals as if it were a window in the towns shop, where the train circled a gingerbread house, surrounded by animated figures dancing around a mountain of gifts, to a silent tune. The gifts envisioned, as our own. 

He was not found until the ice had gone, and the water had taken on the promise of summer. As I look across the frozen expanse of shifting white, I cannot find a way to explain footsteps that will one day be but a memory I cannot forget, should I dare to.

I point to an eagle perched in a tree, impatiently waiting its turn to participate in the seasons of life and death, which gives impetus to a past, present, and future.  It is all that is left after we can no longer walk on water, and the plants below have begun to laugh at the cloudless sky, as sleek images slip un-noticed in search of their tomorrow.

I abandon the plan to pull him over the frozen remembrance, of a life not lived. “Bird,” he says, as the winged shadow crosses our path and we turn to head for the hill where gravity rules, and the ground that gives the sky something to anticipate, remains entrenched in idealism based on hardened conformity. 

His cheeks now a rosy glow of happiness not having learned to disregard the threat of what may lie ahead, and no concern of what has passed, only the now, where the cold injects a realism into the present, which is all he knows. 

I adjust his red scarf, covering all but his eyes, his mittened hands rub the need of rest from his face, as the bird screams his objections to our presence. I wonder what has been lost to the frozen excitement that was turned to tragedy by the inevitableness of a seasons turn, a temperature that changes water to…a miracle; it disappears in one form, and then appears in another. We are no longer surprised by the magic, as we have experienced its tricks before. It is only the eyes of the young that can appreciate the newness that escapes the conformity of life, and takes a piece of the magic captive, a souvenir depicting the uncertainty of a future, the lessons of the past, and a memory, that holds the joy of the present.

“Chocolate,” he yawns, closing his eyes to one form of wonder to discover another, as we slip across an emerging world of possibility.