February
February froze the skating pond,
Beauty gone, still this we won’t deny,
She was thoughtful with her airy wand,
Thankful, think, a rink beneath the sky!
Sons and daughters make their skate blades ring,
Hurry, we can catch them if we try!
Bird-less boughs, but hockey pucks can sing,
Noisy notes to leafless branches tall,
Glorious, the goal is everything!
Cold, but no complaining, after all,
Soon, these boys and girls and ice are gone,
Just today we have to freeze and fall.
Thankful, thawing, so our hearts respond,
February froze the skating pond!
November
Of light and warmth and growing things, alas, there’s nothing left,
November finds me at my window staring all bereft,
Her puddled eyes and chestnut dress are streaming, shower tossed,
She taps upon my window calling, “Sorry for your loss!”
“But if you are the mother here, there’s something you must do,
The children coming in from play are soaking through and through,
They tend to wither, children, just like flowers in the gloom,
The sun can’t stay, but he has asked that you light up the room.”
Though willing, I’m uncertain; still, it helps to turn on lights,
It’s true, we all feel better when the kitchen’s warm and bright,
“November, I have found a way to cheer the wilting crew,
With cookies and a fragrant anti-melancholy stew.”
“Just so,” replies the gray-eyed fairy damsel of the rain,
“A little loving work will cure the blueness in the brain.”
Once a high school Spanish teacher, Theresa Zappe is now a home educator in New York. She and her husband are much occupied with math, meals, science, soccer games, sentence diagrams, dirty dishes, Latin, and laundry.
Nice to meet another home educator on the SCP! Thank you for sharing these, Avery! I remember a winter when our children were much younger, back on the farm in Missouri, when the temperatures had finally stayed in the 20s or below for more than a week. My husband made it into the house very late one night, after milking our 65 cows and then rolling out big bales of hay in the pasture where the herd could bed down until the morning. The kids had been in bed for hours, but outside, the full moon was high and the air was still.
Jesse never minded getting the kids up in the middle of the night for something he thought might be fun. “What else do they have to do?” he’d ask me. That night, he woke them all from their beds and had me go through the old skates in the storeroom to find fits for each. And then all nine of us trekked out to the west lot pond. He built a toasty fire on the bank and we skated for hours under that bright moon, stopping to warm up at the fire now and then.
It’s one of the favorite childhood memories my kids share from time to time. Thanks for reminding me!
Thank you for reading my poem. I’m glad you enjoyed it. With us, too, sustained ice is a bit of a rarity; hence, something to take advantage of when we get the chance. This poem was built off the idea that a little bit of suffering (like the freezing fingers one gets while tying a child’s skates) is nothing compared to the joy of the moment, given that the moment, like the ice and the children, is fleeting.
Amy, you should write a poem about this beautiful memory. (And, of course, have it published here @ SCP!)
Singing hockey pucks and anti-melancholy stew! Brilliant highlights in two delightful poems. Unlike Amy, I do not share such frigid-frozen memories of my own. But your poetry has created them for me. As I rise from bed this morning you have inspired me to fix something warm and toasty for breakfast. Brrr…
Thank you. May I recommend anti-melancholy mush (cornmeal, that is)?
… And, perhaps, enjoy your favorite warm beverage from a SCP’s mug?