Poem For a Daughter Standing Beside a Frozen Lake
"Ice plates, hurled to the edge of the shore by the wind and the waves"
Poem For a Daughter Standing Next to a Frozen Lake
The day is fiercely cold. We are bundled up — hats, mitts, scarves — barely any flesh exposed. The little skin that might be touched by the icy air feels the stinging slap of deep winter. You stand by the shoreline. Ice plates, hurled to the edge of the shore by the wind and the waves, froze quickly in place. Like giant, jagged stones, thrusted up by some prehistoric force, bursting through the earth’s crust, glittering, shinning, reflecting the grey of the day. There is little light left in the day. Twilight falls quickly, heavy like a thick blanket. The sinking clouds hang at the bottom of a somber sky, almost touching the water. In the low light, you smile at me even though my face is contorted by the cold. And I smile back. How many times have we walked this shoreline path, stopped here by the water, danced careful steps from rock to rock, laughing in the waning moments of the day, the waves our only audience? And the quieter times too, where we’ve felt the beauty of the day rising up, and know our words would only disturb the sacredness of the bright sun, or the blowing snow, or the still deer feeding nearby.
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