In Memory of Ted Cumming

There are runner tracings in the snow,
arrows of devotion, here and gone —
but which way do they go?
They go down to the creek and carry on beyond it,
over the white hill, and beyond, and behind me they extend
as far as the eye can see, and to either side. So many of them I can’t tell
which ones belong together.
They are like left hands playing left-hand concertos.
They are the way they took.
They play the few concertos that there are for them.
Over and over
they are distance, they are reasons why.
The rest is snow.
And if the snow is a two-way mirror,
because our light is on I cannot tell
which side is the reflector.
When our light is out, perhaps his light is out too.
And perhaps our side is the reflector.
Or the snow is a window.
The dead field mouse on my summer porch
burns with a helical fire, like an ice cube,
when I touch it on my way in.
Distances, reasons why . . .
distant star,
red star, so far away
how far?