Naked in December

I was on a walk the other night, going through some sparse black spruce, my eyes caught a tall dark shape, strange, all the other trees were covered in their winter’s finest. I was initially a little startled, but once I realized it was a tree I chuckled…

“Naked in December, what happened to you?”

The noise my foot steps make on this trail is unique and hard to describe, because the trail is mostly made via repetitive snowmachine passes it has this hallow sound. This is unlike the sound of walking on just a foot path, the sound is letting you know that the snow is not so densely compacted. I get a strange sense of walking above the ground from this sound. It is a little warning of “dont sink, watch your step” in my mind. My eyes are kept drawn down to the trail looking for signs of how stable the trail is. Currently I can only identify moose tracks as breaking the surface. Footprints all stay nicely on top with out any discontinuity. I’m closer to the tree now. Poor thing looks very out of place, but also mildly distinguished, dark and edgy nature.

I look around it to see what had shaken the snow off the tree, my mind imagining moose tracks, or a bike print in the snow next to it. maybe some dogs jostling and falling into it.

once I got close enough to see I had a good little chuckle it seems an eager snow machine launched of the path and into the deep snow getting stuck near the tree. must have been some frustrated thrashing to get it back on the trail.

I kept walking.

Glancing at the trail now and again, looking,

wondering, who else? what else?

for, I can count on one hand the number of times I have crossed paths with a human on these trails. all very brief encounters. Yet to think that there are other people who spend hours on the same trails that I spend hours on, having all sorts of adventures and mishaps.

I stopped and looked back at the tree.

I thought of the person on the snowmachine pointing the tree out to their friend.

“you see that one tree out there with no snow.. that was me!”

I smile and then bend down and draw a little picture in the snow..

I can leave a story too.