A narrow black slather of brook
hemmed by white ice. The black gloom
of hemlock, a foot of snow
and more falling as fine white mist.
Simplify, simplify. Above
the beaver dam I walk on ice
to the lodge, a dimple of sticks,
and climb it. From here the world
simplifies another step, shallow
with masses of brittle shrub.
I descend and follow the brook
upstream, through another hemlock gorge
till I reach another beaver pond,
climb another lodge, convince myself
this is world enough despite
the documentary black and white
too stark to tell the mildest lie,
too serious to wholly persuade.
Meanwhile the ego I abandoned
in the city has probably died
of AIDS or shame or heroin.
Or else it's walking up Boylston Street
with the frozen sky applauding it,
storefronts glossy with tender goods
and recent postmodern construction
sold to Japanese investors
who've lost billions of consequent yen.
That ego, thick with hurt, has absorbed
the early years of love and lust
no one survives. One day I'll write
its biography, but only when
I'm sure it's dead. Meanwhile
the tree-frost on North Pack Mountain
gleams, and the mist of falling snow
encrusts me with a tougher skin,
the kind I'd like to grow layer
after layer so even the most
delicate or dainty social nose
won't detect the decay within.