"waiting to be chosen..."

It was dusk by the time we loaded
everyone into the old Jeep  
the sleeve of dad's red and black check
lumberman's shirt draped across the
back of the seat as he eased us out of
the long driveway in the gathering twilight

The boys were sugared up on candy canes
and the little ones were sleepy
in the failing light of early December
just after dinner, but before the winter solstice

We older girls sat in the cold waiting for
the magic of the season to reach our
teenage hearts and melt the cold indolence
of being beyond what we'd always loved
and secretly never forgotten

Sitting in the middle I could see the
reflection of my sister's face in the glass
of her coveted window, steamed over with
our hushed sighs of wonder as lights
sparkled from front yards and houses
along the way

old man Johnson's farm was half way between
town and nowhere, acres of trees waiting
to be chosen, branches still peppered with
the forgotten nests of a thousand hatchlings
now grown and making their first pilgrimage
towards the warmth of places they've never been

my sister and I would carry the saw between us
as we tromped through the ice-crusted remnants
of a late november storm that left us blanketed in
the promise of sledding and snow angels,
frozen fingers and crackling fires scented with pine
cones we'd collected in the mountains that fall

i saw her first and knew
I wondered if I could quickly suggest
we look away from where she stood -- elegant and
full of something sad, ready for this last winter
under a sky full of stars and her toes in the
icy darkness of a field in the middle of nowhere --
leaving her to grow another year of nestlings in
her arms