My uncle watched that tree all winter long—its patient bark,
the rope-scars catching dusk like half-closed eyes;
his boyhood ended there—a narrow pasture marked
by hooves and harm, where lashing is a sign.
He drove us out where ice replaced the shore,
a mirror set against the world’s return;
my brother paled—hands frozen to the door,
the windows starred with snow; the cedars blurred.
We shed our clothes, the snow received our weight,
then wiped our footprints clean as if we’d never come.
John cut a path the storm could not erase
and led us to the shoulder of the pond.
He walked the ice and summoned me alone,
his hammer fixed above the winter skin—
the wind returned; the cattails bent in rows,
my brother watching from the snowbank’s rim.
I held my place; the heavens offered no reprieve—
A boy consents. The ice proceeds.