Presence
When I was small, the winter ghost, Jack Frost
took a shine to our bedroom door. His ice
patterned frame appeared as embossed silver,
glowing subtly in the dark of the room.
What scared me most of all was his silence,
the uncaring chill of his cold presence.
Looking back, it is absence, not presence
that turns a fresh young heart cold as the frost
that creeps on up a window in silence.
The absence of warmth, like unfeeling ice.
I once felt abandonment in a room
full of people: mother, father, my silver
haired grandmother, who wore a bright silver
watch on a chain. A hypnotic presence,
she was small but her mood filled the whole room.
I seemed as transient as the hoar-frost,
her heart invisible, like the black ice
my father dreaded. When she died, silence
descended, not lack of noise, but silence,
stillness, atmospheric vacuum. Of silver
and gold they had little, but she had ice.
I think of my young days in their presence,
coal fire, warm broth, yet the permanent frost,
unyielding between them in that front room.
Then, that night when we were sent to our room,
my sister and I commanded to silence,
and when on the door there appeared Jack Frost,
we recognized him by his chained silver
watch, his upraised hand, the old hunched presence,
eerily silent, like dawn spreading ice.
In the morning my small feet felt like ice
as I awoke in a normal bedroom.
There was no more of absence nor presence,
both gone with the fulfilled vow of silence.
There were no valuables, no gold or silver
to take, but my parents thawed their own frost.
Now, when in the presence of hearts like ice
whose frost has frozen warm words from the room,
I sense the silence glisten, like silver.
2/12/19