TheBanyanTree: Northern Lights

[NancyIee at aol.com]

The lake froze over and I wasn't there.  It snowed last Saturday, just a 
dusting; I wasn't there. I don't care for the cold, it brings aches to the hollows 
of my bones. Yet, I miss watching the ice crystals form atop the lake water, 
tiny arms reaching out and out; joing other tiny fingers, and in the morning, 
there's an  icy sheen across from shore to shore.

In other days, the children would be looking for their skates and their 
sleds. The older boys would be dragging the snowmobile out of the dusty corner of 
the garage to see if it still runs.

We're weeks, months away from deep snow, and ice safe enough for skating. I 
miss their enthusiasm. They're all working now, far away, with mortgages and 
cares of their own and no time for dreams of hockey and speeding through the 
snow with red, chilled cheeks.

I'm far away, myself. Too far to see the ice crystals form, to hear that 
gentle crackle as the ice expands in the cold, to hear the children laugh as they 
try to sled in the first snow.  I'm too far away from those days of play and 
snow forts.

I no longer can take the cold, but I do miss those days and the crispness of 
coming winter.

I pick a dry leaf off my house plant, and holding it close, pretend I can 
smell the bare trees, the new snow, the leaf freezing in the ground's wetness.

I am not there.  I will never be there again.  I am too far away, in miles 
and time.

NancyLee