This Wonderful Wilderness

The trees were naked, shaking in the running wind. Their leaves rolled along the still boulevards onto the running highways, venturing to ever after until they softly faded into a rich powder made to nourish the soils below them. The snow fell from above, tumbling off and on the branches of the trees like water dribbling down the elder of a sedimentary Cliffside. In the distance the plows shoveled away the buried snow off into the corners of the dim streets where they viewed past the little windows of many a warm, happy cottage -- where a family of four or six talked about their days --. . . . till tomorrow.

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I remember days sitting in the wilderness just West of the village boulevards that housed its socialites. The frozen river balanced my boots while a granite boulder held my buttocks firmly perpendicular to the Earth. My mouth seeped out chill vapors that I playfully brushed aside with my hands; my wool cap covering my face, the ball of yarn gently rubbing my chin.

I was not hidden well within this wilderness, for the snow created a blinding brightness and the trees lacked the warmth of their crunchy coats, leaving me rather open to view. People were always watching me, their eyes wide open, astonished, as if they were struck by a lightning bolt of paranoia. They were pale. Possibly the chill weather, the falling snow, the intense beauty of a dying loyalty.

Young does walked along the invisible paths; their heads crouched towards the snow as if they were experienced pathfinders along a mysterious trail. I eyed them; but they paid no mind to me, for they were bounded to crimson berries that dangled off of growing bushes, their antlers brushing over the ends of the bush's twigs. My hands were hesitant to reach for one of the deer's coats. To grab it and caress it with each plump finger, trickling down its side with my fingernails like raindrops running alongside a passenger's sidecar window. I wanted to ride them through the great wild, gaze upon the beauty they held through the dab of a colorless paintbrush and smile the whole way home as I pointed back and forth to the eye widening wonders that consumed the forest.

Almost slipping as I leaned forward towards the deer, my hands fell into the deep snow. I grunted loudly. The does' heads jumped up immediately, ears twitching swiftly, watching, waiting for a moment, and then running off into the thick, dead brush.

I pulled myself back onto the boulder, wiping the ice-cold melt water into my coat, grinning in stupidity.

"You ol' son of a bitch, Bernie." I exhaled softly. "You ol' son of a bitch."

Humming to myself, I propped my hands in the gesture of a violin, stroking the innocent air with my clenched palm as the burning cottages, the grayscale loveliness gleamed brilliantly under the twirling clouds. It was briefly; then the world went blank.