It Was A Cold November Day

It Was A Cold November Day

when low clouds the shape of little hills
unraveled into a string of dull pearls
scooted by the bluster of northerly winds.
The sun remained afraid to come out
my son tossing stones its way to clock
a raven sweeping its shadow across our faces,
attentively circling for crumbs of pumpkin
bread falling from the corner of the boy’s blue lips.

With each bold rip of a single smooth stone  
a cute grunt is frosted in the air.
His knuckles are not wrinkled.
His freckled cheeks are pink.  
Hold it this way, I show him,
touching his wrist. His pulse pauses. I pause.

He looks at me with hope and strength,
which I have none of. I shiver with the thought
of changing lanes too soon,
only four months after three became two.
So, we plod forward in the unremarkable field.

His red jacket flaps at its plaid hem.
Our clouds of cold breath drop at our chins.
The wind blows aside his straight brown bangs
from in front of his mother’s hazel eyes.

A weeping willow bends at the field’s edge,
whispering to the mice nibbling at her exposed roots.
In the din of the raven’s caw-cawing
I hear the gurgle of Miller’s Creek ahead of us.
On a canoe ride around its bend his mom and I
once wound our way to places we’d never seen
and found happier times we’d never before been.

Mustard-yellow sticks of straw break
under our boots. With a throaty oomph
he heaves a carob-brown rock - his mightiest
effort so far and breaks a hole in the sky.
We can see Heaven.
His voice, loud as a church choir,

shouts at the hole to Heaven in the sky,
“Hi, mom! Mom? Are you happy?”
Again and again, he cries out
until low clouds the shape of little hills
return to cover the hole in the sky.