MY POND POEM
(for my mother, Betty
at her 98th birthday,Jan. 16)

An unborn nest from the hill

cries out from a voice

of small birds calling out

between a Vermont valley
and Green Mountains

writing my pond poem
with a skeptical pen with words

barely covered with icy frost

the sky wakes up for you

as you sing  to yourself
by the distilled fountain
with twenty winks of memory
fulfilling your morning alert

for your last day dream cry

still gazing up from my miracle
near the evergreen branches
by the ski loft by thanking
an angel of Israel
for saving our lives when
we children fell on an avalanche

wanting to understand

why the lichen rocks are disguised
in a dawn's flakiness of snow

as we slowly climb down
from the shadows lift
through snow flakes branches,

soon unborn trees will bloom
and blossom in a spring garden

from childhood's cold frosty path

as sounds will echo even at night

from an unwise twelve year old
with new year red mittens

hikes down White Mountains

asking pardon for a nature
lost in a morning's forest
wanting to have Apple Betty
and toll house cookies
or lemon and lime pie
to dwell in my mother's kitchen
through shadows of first light
in the wellspring of time.