Encounter: A poem

Encounter

Morning arrives

     blanketed in snow.

Unbidden, I wake to see

small clouds of breath

erupt from the nose

of a deer— I assume

his eyelashes

   are coated in ice.

We take these victories

   of life

         in stride,

             move our feet

       through the snow,

     marvel at the bulkiness

       of our tracks

compared to the sharp perfect

punctures of the deer’s

   in the new snow—

       Pour the coffee,

                       begin.

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“Equally thrilled and terrified, we began to organize 300 pounds of gear into the four pack boxes we would live out of for the next 82 days. Armed with a tent, iodine, maps, fencing pliers, an inordinate amount of mac and cheese, and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, we set out across the Northern Great Plains.”

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