i knew you by your eyes.
your thoughts were not in your voice as the voices of others
must ever be: your darkness was your tongue, your silence clear.
you always carried your weight well, mountain-made,
your walk was made of winter, winter growing up through your legs and
across your back, you, the blanket of ice that burned warm.

when i found you i had to have you for my own.
when i lifted my fingers away there were holes in you.
and you told me they were coming to take you away
your darkness then was transparent, the black fog of grief,
o, the one thing that is animal and human in the same breath,
the thing you breathed and breathed against my skin.

in my solitude i thought of you.
how still the world, how small you, already on your empty way
brave wild and battered, white scarred red.
and i got up and there were scratches on my knees
but i went on and did not look back again.

i thought once i would never find you.
you are the sort of person that lives alone, lives on nothing
but his will, walks the ice the world round, rejoices in
the unbroken air.
you are strong; however, i am stronger,
i am the one who has come to hunt you down, and so i go,
human to my core, and ravaged by the cold,
weathered in the wind, the wind my final ally,
and i will walk the earth, lonely as your people do,
walk with the strength i have found in the end.

when you walked, it was because you had somewhere to go.
i am steadfast in my love. i will beat my way to you.