The Pillared Hall

I entered a pillared hall,
Perfect, white and clean,
Its owner absent,
Or perhaps, just silent and unseen.
Where I'd been, my footprints marked the snow.
Before me spread tall evergreens
And snow quite pristine.
Now and then I heard a groan
As some dead tree leant upon its next of kin
And shifted in the wind.
I could almost understand each sighed lamentation.
My dog started yipping not so far away,
Chivying some poor doe from a snug if snowy bower.

It'd snowed hard the day before.
Now, thanks to Canadian air crossing the border,
(Yet another immigration policy failure)
It's windy, cold and with the sun, very bright.
My dog, seeing me sitting, reading peacefully,
Thought me fair game and hounded mercilessly.
I'd've ignored her,
After all, who's the master?
But you called from the kitchen,
"Now'd be a good time to clean out the attic."
Thus the moment I stood by the sign -
"Protect your town water supply! Absolutely no trespassing."
There I let her off her leash -
"Don't blame me if the snow's hard on bare feet."
I walked down the dirt road,
Plowed 'cause it leads to the town well.
From habit, I took a path into the wood.
The snow lay deep and the walking proved vile.
But that moment, in the cold and light,
Made it feel quite worthwhile.

I stood a moment, then struggled on.
I came to an abandoned railway right of way,
Thankfully a snowmobile'd been along,
The packed snow made the walking much easier.
I followed it to an open field
Where power lines cut through.
A pheasant started from a thicket
And flew like a cannonball past a tower,
My dog a cloud of snow in hot pursuit.
In my mind I heard your voice:
"You could get your painting shit
From the attic, make the playroom a studio.
You always said you'd get back to it
When you had the time.
That's what you have now.
You've become such an idler."
I thought of the pillared hall,
I thought of how it could be captured.
For a touch of drama,
I'd toss in the collapsed figure
Of some expired traveler.

Back in the woods, a bit later,
I met a woman on a horse,
Also enjoying the day and the flattened track.
She said she'd seen my dog,
A hundred or so yards back,
With yet another deer firmly in her sights.
We chatted a bit about her chances,
Which neither of us much fancied.
The woman said, "Still, it's the pursuit that counts."

I came to a branch in the trail.
No one had yet taken the left,
The snow lay deep and unbroken.
I knew it led to a place quite special.
From a rock on a little cliff
I'd look down on a creek snaking black
Through the flat white of its flood plain,
And on the other side, a pathless hill,
Low, brambly and quite inaccessible.
I often stop and sit on that rock
On warmer, easier walks
And imagine how to capture what I've seen
And tease out what it might mean.
Today I stuck to the snowmobile track.

"The return of the mighty huntress",
I said when my dog showed up at the sign.
She snapped up her yummy and sat for the leash.
When she walked, she limped
And under her hind feet, the snow stained reddish.
Still her tail wagged.
Clearly she felt just fine.

Now her legs twitch as she sleeps
And her yips speak of reconstructed joy.
I used to rage at each failure of skill,
At the distance between where I stood
And the top of that hill.
Now I hold things in my head a while,
Then quietly let them dispel.
I watch some football on the television.
The portrait of a failure as an old man.