Holly Brightweed spread her arms and ran
out from the double hayloft doors, and yelled
“I’m riding home, Dad! See you there!”. She bent
and snatched the green knit scarf her basket held,
wound her neck, then seized her prostrate bike.
“Now down this frozen track in time” she said,
“befitting Gwenyth’s steed.” Both grace and use
she had in mounting; sternly bent her head,
made instant force against the pedal. Wind!
Her face rejoiced.
                           The road was straight and long;
Her father’s fields lay square on either side.
Halfway down she halted. “Something’s wrong.”
To left and right two lines of trees split fields.
To right she stared. “A fair enchantment, this”
the girl pronounced, and stilled her mount. “Gray sky,
gray fields, dark limbs of trees, and who should kiss
a thing so dead but White Queen Winter?” (Lines
she’d learned by heart.) The flakes fell silently.
She breathed.
                      Her father’s pick-up passed her then,
honking twice. She smiled and waved, and he
did too. His deep red hat reminded her
that Christmas-time was here when through her home
bright red would hang and drape and plop and cook.
“Evergreen dreams and gingerspice days and comb
your hair and sing his praise and presents lay
beneath the tree to Grandmother’s house we go…”
She sang a hodgepodge medley, riding on
past one more field.
                                Their house was now below,
glowing in a little dale. Holly stood
astride her bike, gazed down the craggy ridge.
Her dad was walking ‘cross the yard, and through
the window Holly saw before the ‘fridge
her mother pulling out a yellow bowl.
Dinner soon!
                      Holly Brightweed shoved
her feet against the ground and sailed the last
few yards down to her home. The bike she loved
she almost tossed inside the lean-to; then
she ran. In the house her parents kissed
and Holly, washing at the kitchen sink,
sang and splashed and sudsed and sighed and swished.