Footprints through snow, eight inches deep, but the air is too cold to allow water to pool. Just snow—plain snow, old snow—to step through, sink in. Six footprints press from arena gate to ATV-plowed path, and I arrange my feet in them as I go.
Maia steps behind me, chooses one path as I pick out mine. Braided mane, loose rope, and a sparrow picks through hay on the ground.
What are you doing? she asks. Walking to the pasture gate, what else?—but that is the wrong answer.
That is what will happen, but what am I doing?
I am stepping into footprints in the snow.
And when I become present to stepping through snow for no other reason than to be present to stepping through snow, I realize Maia’s breath on my neck and jewels glittering on ice and boots sinking deeper and the weight of the rope on my glove and that someone once said that forever is composed of nows.
