It is late afternoon in late winter
This season’s only great snow still covers the ground
Sparkling in the long-angled evening light
The roads have been plowed and driveways scraped
But the lawns and fields are still perfect, unbroken white.
,
I scan the back field
Marveling at nature’s careful architecture
Ten billion tiny crystals, fit together in an even blanket
a perfect smooth covering of the earth
,
Then I see it
Some marking in the snow
There just below the knoll
Nothing leads to it, or away
And there is no characteristic imprint,
No sign of feather or wing
No track of dog or cat
I study the marks and find no words for them
It is not exactly a swirl
Not exactly a sink
I have no comparison, no analogy
These markings are like nothing else
But I have seen this before
Evidence forever unexplained, like some ancient petroglyph.
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