A Winter’s Rap
I waited for such a snowfall,
when work would not call me out
through a frantic phone call
for the emergency team
to strap on snowshoes and stomp
through -53C nights to a funeral pyre
of some horrible kind.
We take turns tapping computer
and remote control. The furnace
is set higher than you like it and lower
than the level of sweat I like it to be.
Once, this would have been lonely,
as winter wraps us, finally, in flake-woolen
quiet. Tonight, I realize how a home
has a hum of its own in this quilted night.
Here, where a caller will be
a cooing grandchild reading
her newest poem for her newest class.
or a daughter asking for a recipe
for bread I had tried to teach
her how to make years ago,
or news that we have a new baby coming
to our family…it is a gentle fire
that warms me…here, it holds no chill.
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