Their rakes lay forgotten.
Stephen runs, red knitted cap,
red cheeks, the little girls
chasing, one wearing a brace
on her leg. They dash
through cut-glass air to tumble
in the cold flakes of brilliant color
piled thick from the woods …
too many … like trying
to rake in all the stars
and clear the night sky.
But we tried, all of us,
’til our arms ached
even into sleep. In those days
we burned great smoldering heaps,
and the air was scented
with smoke until after first snow.
Stephen is ever aloft
in this photo, one leg kicked back,
one leaping ahead,
and nothing, not one thing,
I promise myself,
has changed in all these years.

– Carol Hamilton