Just Another Christmas Day,
[[In the Hiawatha National Forest)
The fire was banked a few years ago and the smouldering
ashes lied dormant.
It is not a diminishment of our love.
Rather, it is a reward of the elder age, a comfort if you will.
That being, the knowledge, that for the rest of our lives, we
will always have that “banked love” that we can re-ignite, if
only in our minds.
Those bitterly cold mornings when we would awake with a
quivering giggle that was quickly quenched by a well
rehearsed scene.
Sprint down the stairs and suppress the shudder of a chill
when looking at the indoor thermometer that reads, 48
degrees. Open the Franklin Stove door’s, scrape and scoop
out the blanket of ashes that are denying the reincarnation
of the preserved glowing coals into a maelstrom of flame.
A few small sticks of kindling for an appetizer.
Then the heavier, creamier entree of beech wood, rich in
BTU’s and guaranteed to provide the desired warm comfort
that only an open fire can give.
Using the grace of a few minutes before “ignition” I hurry
to the gas stove and heat the tea kettle of water that I will
then transform into a caffeine brew.
The empty coffee mugs will be placed on the Franklin to
remove their chill.
The two La-Z-Boy chairs, with their foot rests extended,
will be moved closer, to a precise distance from the fire.
Close, but not so close as to ignite the stockings that
enclose the ice bergs that we call,,,feet.
The fire begins to roar and beckons to the faint of heart.
The aroma of the coffee is another inducement. The
clincher is, when I call out, “Get out of that damn bed or I
will come up and get you.”
Then a scurry of motion when I tell her we have a visitor. It
could be a deer or a fox or a sensational ermine, garbed in
its coat of winter white, and elegantly accessorized with a
black tipped tale.
She is galvanized into a blur of movement, determined not
to miss a single performance of the continuous production
of animal olios.
We sit and watch and wait. Our eyeballs flicker from valley
to frozen lake, searching for an obscure movement that
heralds another rising curtain of a completely new
production,,,of life.
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