Just Another April Sunday

Just Another April Sunday



Skate-slid the Walking Trail
pulled along by pup whose nails rival cleats.
Frozen water sharded from the sky,
slid off blackened branches
and arrowed to the path.

Exhuberant glory.
She chased ice impacts and
mini-explosions,
totally unfazed: her coat
is thicker, warmer than mine.

Mine is heavy plastic.
Sleet-shot rattled, reverbarated
with machine gun intensity
as the wind whipped and
trees creaked their dismay.

Sassy inspected each fallen branch-
new scents to make sense of-
and each clump of ice-shrouded winter-grass.
She turned for home, her energetic burst
outflanking my graceless abilities on ice.

Inside as glasses fog, she shakes, sending ice
skittering across the wood floor
to melt in myriad mini-puddles.
My husband hands me coffee.
Elixer.

He has the woodstove blazing,
flames dance and skitter;
center blue soloist leaps and twirls.
The pup is curled on warmed tiles,
Venison stew simmers on the stove.

Reports filter in: many have no power.
Fingers thaw around coffee mug, toes cozy
in 'Hubby pre-warmed' slippers.
We work on a puzzle of Maui beach,
dream of returning there as the ice falls.