Posts Tagged ‘skate’
on pond ice
The days are short, reminding me of days when my son was young and I resented the brief daylight. We left for work in the dark and arrived home after the sun set. To spend just a little time with my son in the snow, I would turn on the outside light and play with him for a few precious minutes at the end of every day.
On weekends, we would seek out the smallest patch of ice and skate together. Any patch of ice would do. Some years we tried to make a small rink. Usually, we made do with the strip of ice formed at the edge of our driveway…
Our favourite place to skate was a small hollow in the grey woods behind our house. We dubbed it “Hoot-and-Hollow Pond” (because it was just ‘a hoot and a holler’ out back, and because we hear owls so often in the grey woods). The pond was small, but just the right size for my son to wobble around on his first skates.
In the years since we skated there, the trees have grown thick and tall around the pond. I went looking for it this week and found the ruin of the little bridge we built across a narrow place in the pond…
ruined bridge over Hoot-and-Hollow Pond...you can see the broken boards and old nails
and ice on the little pond itself…
Hoot-and-Hollow Pond today, the water level a little lower than when we skated there
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a skate on the woodland pond
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etch
brittle cracks beneath the weight
of blades, we spread our bodies thin
twirl on the delicate lift
of snowflakes drift
above the pond, gather
firs around us, lean away, bend
beneath the weight of snow, find
room to glide, the edge where white birch
cage faint light
magnify the gleam
of paper bark, frail ice
white snow and stars
resist the dark
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© Jane Tims 2011
the skater
One winter day in the early 1970’s, I took a walk, alone, down to the shore of one of the chain of lakes extending from Dartmouth to Fall River in Nova Scotia. Near the edge of the lake, I sat down on a log to watch the snow fall. As I sat there, I had a memorable experience. A lone skater, on racing blades, skated into the cove. He had no idea I was there and skated with the abandon of solitude. This event remains unique in my experience and will always be one of the loveliest happenings of my life.
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solitudes
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shortest hour
shortest day
hike to the lake
on the rail line
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stunted stride
grey rails
grey sky
blue mittens
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2.
the cove is a glimpse
between branches
birch and maple support the sky
expectant with snow
~
I wiggle to warm
a place on a log
to watch
snowflakes like mayflies
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bark cracks
twigs snap
mittens, knees and elbows
tucked
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3.
the cove is an oh!
of unspoilt ice, black
smooth, bound
by ice-skinned cobbles
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last summer I turned one
found a salamander, red as berries, crushed
beneath the weight of air
skin panting in dapples of sun
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today all colour is trapped
in the droop of high bush cranberries
fat sickles of ice
and the electric blue of mittens
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the snow sifts down
I lift my mitt to catch a flake
clings to the wool, white jigsaw
puzzles with atmospheres between
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dark ice dwindles
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4.
a cymbal rings on heavy air
not the crack of hardened bark
but the ring of steel, the scratch
ice shaved by a metal edge
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a lone man skates
round the curve of the shore
long-limbed as a spider he strides
on racing blades
stretches his arms
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turns one toe and leans, a compass
marks a circle on the empty page
three quick strides and a figure
he touches a hand to ice
to steady the turn
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alone, he dances
and I am nothing
a stump, bent vibernum
berries under snow
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neither breath nor mittened hands
only eyes, watching
and in a while
closed
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5.
fines of snow
ease the heavy sky
the trees lean
the skater gone, the cove unwritten
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white on the lake, the shore
the tree bark
the berries
even the mittens, white
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© Jane Tims 2000
nichepoetryandprose 