Open fell as blank page

a short essay on snow and trust

When I see this photo, I see a blank page or rather the blank page, to be more proverbial. I see a vast expanse of uphill white, with light breaking only in the top right corner where there is a sense of something clarifying in the future, just over the way. I see some scrawny marks of leafless bush here and there, almost submerged in the snow, or maybe surfacing. A brittle emergence. False starts, certainly. And I see myself, pole out, looking at something and nothing – paused – like a pen to the page. There is a faint track of where I’ve been, some suggestion of where I’m going, but other than that it’s a scene of quiet possibility. A consideration is being made.