When my twin daughters were little

And it was winter,

They flanked me, drawing

In my breath on the window pane.

They giggled and wiped it clear

So I could see the sun on the snow.

When my son was a boy

Scantily clad for winter,

I pretended to scold him.

He inhaled my frosty breath

And breathed it out as laughter.

My second son and I walked arm in arm

Past the mounds of ploughed snow

And my breath circled his head in a halo,

And his mine.

The procession leaves the church

And the altar boys shiver under their cassocks.

In the wan sun I can tell

From the shape of their breaths

That the hymn is in Latin.

February 29^th, 2008