Scroll
From woodpile to the house
a scroll of arabesques in snow
ends maybe twenty feet
from an empty pile of pallets
and the steel stake against which
the first log had been set
The trail ends just there at that
cupped crater which marks the spot
a squirrel beneath a starlit sky
had stopped and sat
Between the crater and the house
untroubled snow lies pristine as the
road less traveled —untroubled as
the road untraveled— unused, sinless,
innocent, untrod. Unknown
as the road ahead of anyone who
as if startled from a stupor says, No
then turns and leaves a tale undone
marked only by a sinuous
signature in snow
by Jim Culleny
winter, 2009