Traveller Overdue

A sound like an animal’s hiss
along the chimney’s thin, dark marrow
to the still blood-warm grate.
A flurry of flakes at the window.
A powdering of snow on the driveway cobbles.
White trees protrude bony wrists on the air.
A single night bird turns in the stillness,
cry like a rock that cracks a frozen lake.

The house’s heartbeat has dropped
to a metre like the measure of your footfall in the alps:
slow, deep, each outline pressed more heavily
by the weight of your pack:
shovel,
            harness,
                        food,
                                     ropes,
                                               axe.

Against the polar moonlight
I try to believe the toe of each boot
is defined and steady as a pen’s stylus,
and the trails your steps cut
against a paper the winter mills and mills
are the lines of a letter you’re writing home to us
which details the deliriously, miraculously usual:
I’m here, fine, on my way.  Soon.

from Spark (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2008)