My daughters’ schools are a parking lot, a
Baseball field and a road apart. My freshman
Has to be to school by 7:30, my fifth grader,
By 8:00 or so.

This last week, we’ve had freezing morning
Temperatures. On the road to drop my oldest
Daughter off, on the sides, are puddles of water,
From the sprinklers on the baseball field.

Our roads are raggedy, here, built
On old steps of open-pit copper’s mining.
Our rented houses are, too. Just boxes.
Until families move in and make them homes.

I can’t help myself, when it comes to water,
Any big puddle, just off the norm,
Has to be fuddled with, has to be splashed
Through, in our beleaguered Tahoe.

Ah, but, ice, I understand, and cold and snow.
I understand it because I grew up in Wisconsin.
Most people think of ice as cubes,
But, there is so much more to its vicissitudes…

Ice crackles, and crunches, it holds and breaks.
A toe sometimes doesn’t work to efface its surface,
The heel must be applied, repeatedly. Ice rules
Its environment, according to circumstances.

Once, when I was young, maybe nine or ten,
We had an ice storm overnight.
School was cancelled, the ice reeked havoc
With power lines, plied in a coating an inch thick.

I’ve always loved mornings, didn’t jump
Back into bed after the news. I ate cereal
In our breakfast nook as I gazed outside.
I grabbed my coat after, and went to look.

The drifts and swell of earlier snows
Were sheathed, enough so I could walk
On water. At times, I thumped my foot
To break through....

I had been so mesmerized by the crust of ice,
I didn’t notice the huge pine behind the
Ornamental fence, until I went beyond
Its false boundaries.

Where, I became a Rainbow Princess of Ice…
The lower limbs of our sappy climbing tree
Were frozen to the ground, creating
A Palace – just for me, in ice-bound beauty.

The rainbow colors of cubicled ice
Flashed and twinkled into my eyes, promoting
My fantasy-of-Life, stirred and shaken by
All the books I’d read ‘til then.

Princesses unknown become Queens of renown,
And, I believed that truth, until
I grew up. Still, I remember that moment
With piquancy…

I drove my oldest daughter to school,
Reamed the ice on both sides of the road,
And felt good. My younger daughter is a diva
Supreme, and I wanted to show her ‘ice’.

I turned right, instead of left, I watched her Life
Feeling the feel of beautiful ice. I couldn’t
Stop smiling as she probed her toe
Into the ice in various depths and various lies,

Oh, wait, those are my lies…

Unimportance rules part of me,
The other part believes
In Ice.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 12/3/05