by Robin Loving

Created on: August 25, 2010   Last Updated: December 31, 2011

Snow-berry pond

Virgin skates touch frozen pond

Where dreams extend quite far beyond

The patchy gray and frozen fronds

Of shore-lines, ferny grace.

Homespun woolens, snagged and torn

Bottom wet, and knees quite worn

Her eight-year life began that day...

Spinning, in the womb of this place.

Surrounded by great hawthorn trees

Thorns and berries, bereft of leaves

Hidden in this snugly cove

Free to fall, without shame.

New-found grace upon her gift

Of silver-white skates, a life adrift...

Great swirls and twirls and arms extended

Toward the gray-white sky.

She would be known as: “The Queen of Skating”.

She would be known as: "The Queen of the Ice”!

Now known as: “The Queen of  Sorrow"

Alive at a throw of the dice.
. 

Her Brother Peter, was neatly hidden

With his new, red-painted Santa sled.

Santa was kind to both; that year

Perhaps he didn’t see what lay ahead?

Scrambling toward the hole in the ice

Paddling - breathless  - toward the light

Teeth clenched tight, as he paddled faster...

Dragging Katherine, without a fight.

Peter died that fateful day.

Katherine went on to excel.

She never forgot her brother's face

Beneath his frozen, ice-bound jail.

Now as she lay in the Old-Folks home

Her worn-out skates.... just a remnant on the wall

She peers from the window, at the snow-covered trees

Red-berries, bring an end to it all.

A tale that extends, quite far beyond

What I’ve grown to know, as love, and grace.

This simple story of “Snow-berry pond”...

The clear vision of , a long-ago face.

Who I am, and whom I’ve loved the most

None more dear than my brother long dead.

My skates hang on the wall of the room I now share...

With the tears I'm now able to shed.

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