In
the night of ice
her
corn cake in his rucksack he steals
yarn
from her sheep in the stockings
from
her needles he steals
her
sunshine smile he steals
her
dream of gardens
and
children singing
and
the warm hearth of old age
he
steals.
Waking
to stoke the fire,
she
feels the loss, cold
in
her house, cold
in her Jefferson-town, cold
in
her New Hampshire.
Shadow-tracks
in snow point
south
toward a river-slot
among
the mountains
fencing
this place
from
the other world, turned
upside
down, that he's been called
to
right.
Over
night-shift
she
layers linen, wool, leather:
petticoat
and blouse
skirt
and apron
her
own soft stockings
from a chest, open
by
the hearth of sparkling coals,
moccasins
by the door,
shawl
and leggings,
mittens
and cape.
The
last piece of corn cake--
her
love's own adventure.
Thick
door shut behind, she steals
herself
from parents, steals
her
dreams:
fields
enriched
each
spring by river-swell,
infants
and elders
warm
as hazel-nuts
drying
by her fire.
Step
after step in the marks
of
his feet, she watches
the
ridge silhouetted
between
herself and dawn.
The
hood of her cape catching
slow flakes, her nostril-edges
slow flakes, her nostril-edges
iced
shut with each breath,
step
after step she marches
in
the marks of his feet.
Sun
just clears the mountains
when
she starts the aching
upclimb
toward the ridge
beyond
her river's valley.
Petticoats
refrozen after snow-
melt
from her heat,
moccasins
soled with ice,
panting
breaths
barely
warm before
she
lets them go,
she
rests. A circle packed beyond
her
path, as if a warm
she-bear
had curled, sleeping
and
stinking, around a dark place
in
the snow—his fire-place
still
smoking. Twigs she tosses
from
balsam underbranches
catch,
explode pitch-pockets
into
flamelets, into
fire
she feeds
with
thicker deadwood.
She
dreams
of
stealing up behind him
in
surprise, disguised
as
drummer boy or piper
for
the troops.
He
knows her eyes, winks
back
and smiles
but
keeps the secret as they march
to
Boston and its war. Her fire
shrinks.
She
wakes, eats corn cake
in
the snow.
Her
day's trek
has
brought her to the ridge.
Before
her, tiers of mountains
blue
and grey and blue-grey-green
then
silver, ruffled
in
rows toward the sea-horizon.
His
second fire is dead now,
near
the wet mouth
where
a brook leaves
its
pond just below the ridgetop
trail
he's left. Dry twigs
in
cold ash cannot wake it.
Flint
sparks in dry grass
under
twigs cannot.
Flint
sparks in birchbark
in
dry grass under twigs
cannot.
Feet
half frozen
like
her heart,
her
underdress, sweat-soaked,
becomes
the cooling-cloth
she
knows from childhood fever,
and
she sees her mother, sees her
grandma,
sees her own
children
all around.
Him,
too, leaning mythic
against
the steep cliff
watching
her sleep white.
Winter-death
is kinder
than
he, kinder than the weather
or
the mountains, kinder
than
dreams untrue, kinder
even
than future, as a silver needle
through
silk leaves no mark
but
the name it embroiders—Nancy
on
the brook, the pond,
the
mountain where she sleeps.
Nancy— strange grace
of
mountain women
in
the cold.