Following Footsteps

My father, of a wintry morn, would cut footsteps in the snow,
his feet blazing a path to the spring, where I,
at first light, would go for water. Mountain snow would waft
deeper than my little legs, and thus, I had to follow his path.

My father, having a sense of humor, would sometimes meander
over to the pond or drift in waves; the trek longer then
and at return, with glass milk jugs of crystal water, one in each hand,
I’d wish for a more direct route home. Yet following in his footsteps

I saw the deer come off the ridge, watched late geese ski on frozen lake,
found little notes tied to a branch with twine: Make a snow angel here.
It, I found out later, was a quarter mile to the spring.
Older still, I realized, my father could have, simply, gotten the water himself.