palimpsest

The plodding lunar footprints left by all these geese

the shoeprints of a small child post-holing down and then up
over the rimed crust, onto which she stamps soft green goose turd

the affectionately parallel tracks of a couple quail across a backyard, intersected
by the bootprints of an adult male dragging a dead

Christmas tree to the woodpile

the scattered symmetry in the paths of juncos and mice around the compost pit

the theoretical footprints of a snow flea

the cuneiform runes pressed into muddy snowmelt by wild turkeys

the ecstatic scratches and departing wing sweeps left by crows
crowding over the gutpiles stiffening between auger holes on a frozen lake
and the ragged scouring of magpies on a deer carcass

keep a long cold library through January.