Each step drags drafts of powder as my feet kick through the snow.
My goggles are fogging. My beard’s crisp tips chip on windy ice and blow.
Feelingless fingertips frostbitten to numb.
This Wisconsin snowstorm has blocked out the Sun.

Even when they’re not fogged, the goggles do no good.
This blindness reveals only horizontal horizons where the Sun once stood—
Where the white meets gray. I’ve been wandering for days, but the gray only meets more gray.
I am just a drop of blood in a sea of wool, with no shepherd to say:

“After days of gliding feet atop of future graves 
Hovering over knees breaking snow like breaking waves.
Don’t feel, nor hear, the ice today, cracking beneath your toes.
Your frightened knees drop down to plead but don’t choke on broken snow.”

Crawling brings me to a treeline, though no forest, only rows.
Using them as crutches, I leap from post to post.
My progress is slow, but my steps are sure.
The bark bleeds my hands leaving bloodless blood sores.

Up ahead a smokestack’s spitting fire from its cap.
Though I take another step, no progress has been met.
But I will make it there tomorrow, or the next day—that’s a fact—
For Gramma’s chicken soup, silk-lined robe, and bubble bath.