And in those days the ptarmigan will become

                     as white as driven snow …                                                                

 

 

Stirs a few speckled ovals

@ high elevation and

promises shell-shock,

survival.

Each egg is as seismic

as it gets inside a world of

dwarf willows, lichens,

mosses — moorland

fruit.

And, then, in a split-

second or sidelessness

of oval, the difference

between being born

and unborn becomes

a moot point.

The taste of having

been elsewhere,

of being preterite,

means next to nothing

at this high elevation

where everything always

starts from scratch.

In the dead of winter

the same birds will

turn into white

apocrypha with black

lores and listen (on the

QT) to the sound of their

impending echo.