ABOUT TO SIT DOWN Stepping out the back door and watching snow settle bright gleaming on the woodpile, the backwards and forwards looking guy smells smoke, and the color of the leaf-covered ground comes up into his eyes. Daylight is going to bed in the dirt, and snowflakes follow it as far down as they can. The backwards and forwards looking guy is about to sit down and remember all the snows he can and imagine the ones to come. He leans back in the rocker and releases, his weight impelling its own motion the other way. If my youth were a summer pasture I'd be in a migration now toward the lower slopes, just ahead of winter. He sniffs his own smoke and thinks I'm burning too but slowly enough to be good for me.
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