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The wind blew cold through the fir trees,
and over stones
on the hillside.
The grey sky carried a snowstorm,
and we were alone as
night fell,
alone and lost in a dark wood,
among the firs and the
boulders,
with no idea where the trail was
that wound down the cold
hillside.
We didn't know where our home was.
The wind blew fierce
through the dark trees.
My brothers and I were frightened
and lonely and
cold as night fell.
I was the youngest and slowest.
My tears iced under my
eyelids.
One brother lifted me upward,
and carried me high on his
back.
We found a cave on the hillside,
a tiny cave near some
boulders.
We filled it with twigs and dry leaves,
and we hunkered down
for the night.
We woke to the cold in the morning,
to a hill covered
with white snow,
hungry and scared and alone there,
with no idea where we
were.
My brother climbed up a tall tree.
He watched the world
from his high perch,
studied the lakes and the boulders,
and the shapes
of valleys and hills,
until he noticed a small stream
winding in and out of fir
trees,
a stream with falls that were frozen,
and banks that were sculpted
with snow.
"We need to follow that small stream,"
he told us when he
had come down.
"It winds downhill to the river,
where we might find
trails to our home."
We trudged through snow that was waist high
to the stream
flowing through fir trees.
We slid and tumbled and climbed down
the hill
to the river below.
We stood there, scared and uncertain,
not sure which
direction to go,
when we heard above the cold wind
some men loudly
calling our names.
We turned at the sound of their voices.
There, where the
river bent northward,
three men from our town were walking.
Our father
was one of the men.
They carried us to our own house,
through white snow
drifting from fir trees,
across the ice on the river,
and right to the
stove, which was hot.
We danced in our house by the lamplight,
danced on the
floor as the wind blew,
danced by the stove as the snow fell,
danced in
delight of our lives.
