When you write to us, "Snow coming on the mountains,"
your words arrive as chill and comfort, our nerves now
still with any news, age wandering through us like the quiet
of our blood. We think of you there cabin-sheltered. We
will wait. A week or two. The beeces, maples, willows,
birches, and oaks along the creek now leaf-lost or yellow.
When our time comes to look into our own first now, I
will think of what I think of every time--how within each
winter's long surround of cold, my father kept the family Bible
on the kitchen table always open to the Psalms. On any morning
I woke early in the iced arrival of the light I would see him turn
a page, slap on his hat, and walk outside to shovel on into the day.
From Practicing to Walk Like a Heron, by Jack Ridl, Wayne State University Press, 2013
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