The Snow Storm

by Marie Howe

I walked down towards the river, and the deer had left tracks

deep as half my arm, that ended in a perfect hoof

and the shump shump sound my boots made walking made the silence loud.

And when I turned back towards the great house

I walked beside the deer tracks again.

And when I came near the feeder: little tracks of the birds on the surface

of the snow I'd broken through.

Put your finger here, and see my hands, then bring your hand and put it in my side.

I put my hand down into the deer track

and touched the bottom of an invisible hoof.

Then my finger in the little mark of the jay.

Marie Howe will be in Acton this month to receive the 17th Annual Robert Creeley Award! She will read from her work at a free public reading at 7:30 p.m. at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School auditorium, 36 Charter Road, Acton. Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio is a sponsor of this event.

Marie Howe is the author of three books of poetry: The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, The Good Thief, and What the Living Do. She is also the co-editor of a book of essays, In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing From the AIDS Pandemic. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Agni, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and The Partisan Review, among others. Find a full bio of Marie Howe at www.robertcreeleyfoundation.org