Reflections Flicker

by Diane Webster

Lost while hunting

actually while returning

to the warm car --

my mother and I hiked the road

up one rise, down the other

like our hopes as we topped the hill

and saw no car.

All summer I wore those boots

to break them in before October.

I wore shorts and T-shirts

with knee-high socks and stiff new boots.

Great for soccer, but slow for softball

and cold now as we trudge

perpetual consecutive rises

like driving up Colorado’s Pike’s Peak

as each switchback

appeared to disappear

into invisible sky into clouds into heaven.

Maybe not a bad destination

until we look down and see the car

pulled into a turn out

like a campfire flickering into night.