Girl Lost on the Ice, 1914

What stillness sits between
these cracks of frozen
water broken apart
of sub-zeros splitting

like kindling
on these vast plains of ice
I walk on and on
for fear the crust
thin and sharp as a familiar voice

will break and heave apart
in this glowering
this evening of the lake
there is no welcome
only the rumblings of empty

and your shapeless call to follow
on the which-way wind
I stumble
my own gasps hanging long and
frozen on my face: white on white

into the double white
of darkness looming,
luminous like your skin
and warm
as cows' milky breath

into the foaming drifts
of dairy cream
I sink
at last in sleep enfolded
in your strong arms of birch.

Leslie Smith Dow
Ottawa, Ontario
(from The Pioneer Poems: The Life
and Times of Alice Maude)