2 more from the past week

I'm glad I don't feel like I have anything to prove with this. I just hope no haters come through and steal anything from me. how do i make that copyright sign? either way...here is a really short one and another one.

I'd much prefer to
read another's book -
to put down the
pen
ever-writing, close the
eyes
ever re-reading, the one
that is mine.

The life, long-lived, though
short of years, burns not at
its ends but from within,
in burning toils, and
having toiled,
rests for a new day.
Owing itself only to the author
until another claims
that attention, this life, lived
lest lies draw doubt,
is full.

thoughts as I walked on december 21, 2009

Walking down a snowed-in street, I
found something akin to adventure

In the once clean shovel-paths
made by morning ghosts, who,
bathed in the snow-sepia of streetlights
and 19 hours straight of accumulation,
re-imagined the necessity
of roads through the wilderness.
These past avenues, once noticed,
were subsequently travelled
by any bold enough to enter
and used until the grass
knew where to stop.

A walk to get coffee becomes the expedition
of the unappreciated bastards
that Lewis & Clark must have
found dead on their trip through
the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase.
They never reported these bodies
for the same reason that you or I
would not - they fade into the landscape.

Nobody cares about the lone
explorer, and even he doesn't care
for the adventure alone.
There is a destination and, therefore,
a recognition,
similarly noticed on a day like today,
that each step means something,
that the end of fresh footsteps in the snow
means I must make a new path,
new prints to be walked in.
And until this white wilderness melts
away, others will walk in these
steps, and never know who
it was that came before them.