I exhale when the cold air hits my face.

My breath hangs in the winter air.

Far away I hear my brother and sisters

Far away I hear their skates slide on ice.

At the moment, I walk

My father holds my mittened hand

My ankles wobble, in my sisters’ pass me down skates.

My mother waits with a fire and cocoa by the pond

I look up and see the stars

I look up and see my father

Tall and strong, a smile on his face.

We walk hand in hand into the cold night air

 

Forty six years later

Another winter night.

My brothers and sisters and I sit by a bed.

My father is traveling through a winter land

Somewhere close by

I know my mother sits waiting for him by a fire that I can not see.

Outside I look up and see the stars