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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/535166-First-Winter
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by Eliot Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR · Poetry · Parenting · #535166
A father's thoughts on a winter night
First Winter

That first winter
when the pipes froze
and river water,
warmer than the air,
rolled solemn, creeping fog
across the frigid bridge
at forty-two below,
we brought our sleeping babies
bundled to the parlor
and lay them side by side
on makeshift quilted beds
a toasty, prudent distance
from the woodstove,
where, warmed by crackling maple,
they shunned the winter wind
that brought some hapless others
death that very night,
and I fed a greedy watch fire
(while she, snuggling with them, slept)
and pushed away the grasping frost--
a blizzard-bitter hand
that once before held mine
another long and lonely,
shuddery winter night.
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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/535166-First-Winter