There was no real hurry, but the car
traveling toward town 

closes the distance with such urgency
that a black form against the white snow
changes with supple suddenness
into a large weasel,
a shape moving with a purposeful
and graceful motion—like waves moving

over the open areas of the frozen river bed
outside our window, or the otter’s trail

left in the snow spinning downhill
and forming an imaginative existence
of joyful movement.
 
The mind halts for a moment
even though this Fisher disappears
faster than than my foot finding the brake pedal.
 
These secret moments are a flash of time
lasting forever in memory
as its dark shape climbs
over high plowed piles of dirty snow
and moves with purpose
away from the road and into the trees. 
There was no good reason to stop.
and a few minutes later, one can doubt this reality.
 
Years earlier a fisher paused

and looked back over its shoulder at the strange occupants in a car