Two Christmases ago,
Morning cold hovers in electrons.
Frost covers the Chevrolet
Backed by whiteness
Under zero degree sunlight
The old farm place sees morning
Bright and calm....

The ancient barn,
**** frosted roof agleam,
Stands downhill to the north,
Below a curving tractor trail
Cut in the snow...

At the other end of those tracks,
Eighty-one and counting,
You are crawling down
the tractor steps,
Pulling battered buckets
from the ancient fodder shack,
Hobbling to the cattle troughs...
Doing what you love to do...
Have done for fifty years....

I am taking pictures at the house,
Amazed at the cold and frost;
An onlooker now,
Somehow aware that I can not
Follow you...or won't,
Wistful still for attentions
you always freely gave
To kine instead of kin.

Could I go back,
Would I go down
To trough the feed?
I tell myself I would,
Or I would not.

The image burns coldly,
Electrically before me,
And only vaguely I'm aware
That you have slipped away.