Through frozen branches

   

   I want to tell you of a night in January when I was young, when it rained hard just before a quick, deep freeze.  The rain pushed south to Massachusetts.  A full moon rose, pouring its own cold light over the hills, sudden and absolute.  A stunning cold.  It left an even layer of crystal coating on the night.

   We rushed into our jackets and black rubber boots with metal buckles, grabbed our leather mittens from their hanging place behind the kitchen stove, and charged out to skate on the sequined counter-top that was now our front yard.

   I remember most the lilac by the driveway.  Twigs that were soaked in the black night rain, then flash-frozen.  An explosion of sparkling shafts, a bundle of frozen sparklers in the green street light. 

   Thinking at the time that I would remember it always, I slid under the lilac on my back to look up through the frozen branches at the moon.