Cutting A Track

        I

It was a heavy, deep, wet snow.

The tracks were clear, no ice along the edges,

the claw marks often sharply showing,

the stride unhurried but beyond me catching

up.

                     II

I tracked the bear; it took me

to where I couldn't go and I turned

back, walked slow up the hill through

the slashings, on rock lodged thousands

of years ago to the edge where I knew

the valley below.

                     III

I could have been tracking God the way the sign

never let me see the bear, the way

I could never gain on what I was hunting.

It didn't go through thick places,

once walked a fallen tree as if on a balancing beam.

I stepped in the paw print or just

aside looking down, up, out, to each side.

I never thought about not following

the track adding it to the other

ones haunting my dreams.

-Byron Hoot

Stained Glass Writers of Punxsutawney