My Solitary Track

The snow swiftly fills my solitary track
as I stride across the windblown field.
It’s doubtful I’ll find my own way back.

I glide down hills past yellowed tamarack
across the blowing drifts to which I’ll never yield.
The snow swiftly fills my solitary track.

I left the resinous pine of youthful bivouac
to pursue a dream yet to be revealed.
It’s doubtful I’ll find my own way back.

The howling winds bend birches low to crack.
I’d not hear a wildwood bell even if it pealed.
The snow swiftly fills my solitary track.

For a compass at dusk, I look upward for the zodiac,
but it too by vaporous clouds remains concealed.
It’s doubtful I’ll find my own way back.

Any sense of direction I find I lack,
I taste the fear my fate is prematurely sealed.
The snow swiftly fills my solitary track,
it’s doubtful I’ll find my own way back.


© Sherman K. Poultney 3 January 2006

Notes:
villanelle http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/villanelle.html

V. Klinkenborg, “The Rural Life”, p. 199.
“The snow fills in our tracks so swiftly that its doubtful we’ll ever find our way back to school……”