There is a story you’d tell,
winter evenings,
of parents with linked hands,
a chain down the steep iced-hill,
a wall held on to
by the children going to school.
One by one, each making
his or her way, over the ice,
parent to parent, top to bottom,
slippery to safe, home to school.
And when the day was done,
back again, hand over hand,
climbing the hill,
school to home again,
in the safety of
parent to parent to parent.
When school was cancelled,
sledding from the top of the
snowy street to the bottom
where the traffic sped passed
with no idea to stop
and you’d say
how did we survive our childhood.
Adam Byrn Tritt 