Techniques of Avalanche Survival

When the white thunder stops and you’re finally curled    

in your womb of snow, wiggle your toes.

If there is no pain, flex your fingers, make a fist,

plow a breathing space. This smell—clean, empty—

must be the scent of the upper atmosphere,

dragged down miles, flake by flake.

Careful.  You don’t want to be a second triggering

tremor, setting off another slide; slowly pack your chrysalis.

Though your chamber may be infused with sky-blue light

you won’t be able to tell which way is earth.

Remain calm.  Find a small heavy object—a knife, a watch—

hold it out and let it drop.  Its fall will tell you

the direction of the ground.  Don’t be surprised if it hits

your chin; your mind has already blacked out those sickening

minutes, your body a loose marionette in the tumble.

When you have your bearings, mole in the opposite direction.

Try not to think about the surface,

smooth now as a low-tide beach at sunrise.

Don’t picture the search party spotting your glove

worming through the glittering crust.  Forget

how your presence there, and your entrance,

will be—as it always has been—utterly, unimaginably small.

This poem appeared in Willow Springs No. 55.