Short Arctic desert day ---
  and someone left their snow-shoes in the tundra.
  Look around every which way
  but I can't see just where the footprints go.
  Is it a casual disappearance? ---
  Plucked from the middle atmosphere
  like straw wind-blown.
  No speck on the horizon ---
  no simple message scrawled
  upon the snow.
    Unearthly visitation ---
  someone left their snow-shoes in the tundra.
  Hungry buzzard flier
  circling round and round
  rattling death's tambourine.
    Have to run it down the cold wire ---
  late insertion in tomorrow's lost and found.
  Should I spread out searching?
  But I'm a little thin upon the ground.
    So I raise my lips to coax
  the last drop of brandy from the bottle.
  Rest my feet and contemplate
  the mystery that's haunting
  this Siberian space.
    Show-shoes they bind me down ---
  I'm just one more parasite of the surface layer.
  I begin to get the feeling
  I've been on this stage before
  and I'm the only player.
    One more Arctic desert day ---
  another set of shoes out in the tundra snow.
  I make my fade to white-out
  and you can't see me where my footprints go.