Winter Ready by Leland Kinsey

Author:Leland Kinsey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Green Writers Press
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

READING

I used to read Farmer Boy to my boy,

just as my mother read it

to my siblings and me.

But I sit on his bed in bright lamp light.

My mother sat at the top

of the stairs, between bedrooms,

and read by candlelight

and later flashlight,

the wan column of light falling

on each of us when she was done.

The house had been wired

during the war by Rural Electric,

so only the downstairs was done

and poorly. She sometimes sat

in brighter light unseen by us

and played piano for us.

Through the open stairwell door

music flowed, the reverse of cascades,

rose up riser and tread and cold air well

as she played slow jazz, show tunes,

and fast paced hymns.

We slept after our chores

while father and she finished theirs.

I often sang to my son,

work songs from the thirties

or protest songs from my own youth.

The boy in the book knew cold–

driving oxen in deep snow,

cutting ice–

as did we. Water in winter

froze on our dressers,

and the iron stove in the morning

sat like fresh dug Arctic ore.

Woods work for firewood

or logs to sell often chilled

hands and feet beyond feeling,

but, Oh, the ache of its return.

My son’s known cold, but not that,

or the purple swelling of frozen ears,

or the agony of chill blains

after outdoor winter work.

But neither did his kinder childhood

allow him to know

the work he did helped pull

the family through.

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