Home for the evening. Not lonely but alone. I think about what the river has shown me: the slinking mink, the tangled willow roots, the stain of sun on snow, and the tfwnk, ping, splash, and crack of its ice. Swans are white flowers floating. If this river were mine, I would call it the Unfastened, where scooped cutbanks shake winter free.
Just before dusk I strap on snowshoes and return to the river. Since tipping over the first day, I've longed for full immersion. On the bank, I take off one boot and stick my toe in. Instant pain. Try again, dipping the whole foot to the shin. I take off my clothes, step in, squat down, shoot back out of the water fast, get dressed, go home.
Dark comes. Black clouds blank out the ebbing moon. Tcaxa'lxe'l is a Navajo concept of darkness: sun cannot penetrate it; protection and invisibility are conferred by it; this darkness can move without making noise, which is why it can enter the body of anyone it likes and search their mind.
Early morning. Behind mist the sky whitens. Falling snow means the world is dissolving. A fragment of the horned moon breaks off in cloud. I step over the track of a wild swan.