What You Leave Behind
Winter doesn’t let you hide.
The snow shows where you’re going; it shows where you’ve been.
It covers and conceals, too, but only some things. The rest it throws into sharp relief, their clarity all the greater for the contrast.
Snow shows your shadow, too, for what it is: shows the lines your existence draws upon the earth.
It’s easier to pretend in the summer, long grass to hide in, to absorb the light and shadow.
Winter shows no such mercy. Insistent, relentless, it forces you to bare your impatience, your anger and your fears, bare every shortcoming in the shadows foreshortened on the light, like a feast of frailties spread upon a white blanket, inviting others to come, consume.
Your footprints shown, your shadow visible, every line and curve and crook evident, every distortion of your soul laid bare.
If you’re lucky, your spirit is straighter than your body, less clumsy, more consistent.
Winter is who you are, what you do, what you leave behind.
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