That winter I sat under snow, waiting pale and draggled to go up. I heard the wind shatter the dead windows. I heard the trees stiffening with cold. I left my body under the snowy sheet and went.
I went into a house.
My nightgown's wet.
Shhh! said the wind.
Look how wet!
A branch scratched the house's side.
There are many things to fear, many things. Outside is winter and the trees are dead.
The snow melted and the lake was running over black, and the swans that swim there were gone into darkness without a moon to shake light over them.
The door opened, and my mother stood in yellow light. The door opened wide and the black shapes flapped off like crows shying away.
I said to her, "My nightgown's wet."
She stood with the light from the hallway wrapping round her and said, "You've been sick."
She mopped me with a rag.
I said, "The lake spilled over and wet me with its black."
See the brown and green weed wound in my hair.
She said, "You're cool now-cool as though you been down in the root cellar."
I had not gone up, I hadn't died.
She shut the door and went to stir a pot or mend a sock or some other thing-her work never done, she always said. A woman's work.
I'm cool as a root, which does not dream.
I closed my eyes and looked into me. At summer. At the green hills jumping up as I climb the path to see the sun go down. The clouds leave their shadows on the blotchy hills. The windows of my house catch fire, then die as the light stops.
I closed my eyes and listened.
Somewhere a dog was barking.
The kettle whistled.
My father was chopping wood—I heard winter ringing in his axe.
The wind was in the attic.
He came inside, and I heard the mumblemumble of voices, the crack of our door bolted against the night-a sudden noise like the lake's when it begins to thaw. Then nothing more at all as sleep's black water lapped into the house.
I kept my eyes shut tight till first light lit up the room behind my lids. The house was quiet, no one stirred. Soon the kitchen would be clanging and the steps would creak with feet, but now all slept on past morning's whitening.
Only the birds began to sing inside the winter trees.